The Path of Fac
by H.G.Wells
Summary: A Human journalist pursues a link to his scarred wartime childhood - and discovers a connection to his past with the tale of a Covenant soldier who fought to survive...and to find his own path.
1. Prologue: Chapter 1 - Scheherazade

**Prologue**

* * *

 **Chapter One:** _ **Scheherazade**_

 **October 2, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **New Tahiti, Pacificus System**

I still remember my home; even though the last time I saw it was over ten years ago.

I remember the lush, tropical climate, with the sporadic rainfall and hot summers. I remember the white buildings and peaceful streets of Mariana City, the port city which our home by the sea was located outside of, where my family would frequently make shopping trips.

I remember the coastline of white beaches and sky-blue sea. I remember the swamps of Earth-introduced mangroves that grew further down the coast that had been brought to New Tahiti during the planet's colonisation era, extending into the lush jungle inland.

I remember seeing the giant zeppelin-fish – New Tahiti's equivalent to the great whales of Earth – cruising and feeding in the plankton-filled waters during their migration season. We would often take our sailing yacht out to see them, as their huge bulks filled the sea.

I remember our house – that large, beautiful white villa with a roof of red-tiles, alone with a scattering of other villas in the scene of natural beauty. I remember how my father would regularly maintain it, the car, the boat and just about everything else whenever he had the time. My mother also cared greatly for that house, always making sure it was just right for her family. I remember how I would play on the beach and swim in the sea with my friends and older sister.

I remember how happy those times were; and how they ended when my home burned.

I can still remember – the memory will never leave me – when the announcement came over the news that the Covenant had arrived in-system, along with the evacuation order for all civilians planetside. I was fifteen when I received the news.

My family had known that it was likely to happen to us throughout the war. I had gone through my earlier years with the bliss of childhood ignorance about the Covenant advance through the outer colonies. One heard about the war on the news and I knew that my father's business made its own healthy contribution to the war-effort, but as a child it all largely passed me by. Indeed most colonists were equally blissful about how dangerous our enemy was at that time, thanks to ONI's control of the media.

But as the war dragged on and I reached my teens, we all grew up. My first real lesson about the war came on the day my sister enlisted into the marines as a 2nd Lieutenant, five years before the Covenant came to New Tahiti. She kissed and hugged her ten-year old brother before she left, and my teary-eyed parents. I had the feeling I would not see her again.

The second lesson which I learned – along with all of humanity – came on August 30th, 2552. The news announcer, perhaps for the first time, gave us the honest truth plainly and simply. Not even the UNSC's official war bulletins could hide the scale of the disaster.

Reach, humanity's great fortress in the stars, had fallen in just over a month. Over 700 million people, military and civilian alike, had been killed. The best had been done – I was inspired then, and remain inspired now, by the incredible stories of courage in the fight against the unstoppable. No amount of courage, however, could ever change the fact that this was a crippling defeat for the UNSC. Our powerful military, which we had heard praised so much on the news, had failed.

All of us, including the fifteen year old boy who listened to the news with his parents and neighbours – I can still remember my mother's tears – knew what this meant. Much of the fleet had either been destroyed or had pulled back to Earth. Humanity was fighting for its very survival…and losing.

Our little paradise of a colony was one of the few worlds that remained untouched. Now it was undefended and ripe for attack. Then, on that same August 30th, my third lesson about the Great War arrived with a knock at the door from a Marine Corps Sergeant. I still pity that man to this day.

Lieutenant Fern Crawford – my older sister – had been killed in action during the fighting at Reach. I still can't describe how we felt then. The war had come home to us already.

It did not take long for me to see it up close. On October 2nd, just over a month after receiving the news of Fern's death, the Covenant arrived, along with the sound of guns and plasma.

The announcement was made on the emergency broadcast system. I leaned against the wall, my whole body shaking.

I dropped the glass I had been drinking from, which shattered on the tiled kitchen floor. My parents said nothing - they let the broken glass lie there. We would be leaving soon. They didn't bother to clean it up as we left.

* * *

The UNSC forces based on New Tahiti were outnumbered and isolated; they consisted of nothing more than three Army divisions, along with five frigates and a destroyer in orbit. The soldiers who formed the planetary garrison were demoralised. Their equipment was as ever inferior to that of those they faced in battle. However, no one who was there can deny that – as on Reach – they fought bravely and relentlessly to give civilians like us a chance to escape.

All but two of the UNSC ships were destroyed by the end of the battle – for the price of a Covenant destroyer, four Corvettes and a CCS-class Cruiser that had been destroyed in a suicide attack by the frigate UNSC _Coventry_. The survivors - the frigate UNSC _Ottawa,_ along with the destroyer UNSC _Zulu_ \- escaped to the far side of the planet, where they covered the evacuation.

Several mass driver cannons based in Mariana City held back the Covenant Corvettes – allowing any vessel in the vicinity to evacuate from there without interference. This was demonstrated in dramatic fashion in the sky above.

All of my family and neighbours saw one of the Corvettes shot down in a blaze of white and indigo fire as it tried to take position over the city; a shell from one of the mass drivers struck the alien ship right in the engines and ignited huge fires in the stern. A great flower of fire and black smoke burned and blossomed high in the sky where the ship had been hit; no doubt it could be seen for miles around.

The purple-coloured Covenant ship listed heavily as it fell from the sky before crashing into the sea, sending up a great spout of superheated water as it exploded on impact, boiling the ocean around it. A column of smoke and steam rose from the sea, and remained visible throughout the battle for miles.

It was scenes like that which helped remind us that Humanity was not mere livestock passing through a slaughterhouse. There was no escaping the fact that we were losing this war, that my planet was doomed and that the Human race's chances of survival were slim. However, no-one – especially not the Covenant – could escape another fact; that Humanity was fighting back hard and would continue to fight back until the end, while those who tried to extinguish us were paying a heavy price for their efforts.

But there was only so much all of that could accomplish.

The Army kept the Covies from reaching the cannons long enough for civilians to evacuate, despite the relentless onslaught. However, they did not hide the fact that they could not hold forever. We would have to leave while our troops could still give us the time. News travelled fast about the alien siege of our planet, and as such people were quick to draw up their plans of escape.

Everyone on New Tahiti also quickly learned something else about this Covenant assault on our world; it was lead and spearheaded by the Jiralhanae. This had grown increasingly common in the later years of the war. For reasons no one knew at the time, Brute-lead fleets were now leading separate, independent assaults from the mainstream Sangheili-dominated forces – and New Tahiti had the dubious honour of being a target for these unique assaults.

This only added to the terror. The Brutes had a savage reputation even among the Covenant. We all knew the stories of what happened to humans who fell into their hands. I have no doubt that as I witnessed the invasion as a frightened mid-teen, horrific scenes akin to those on Beta Gabriel that same year were being repeated in any populated area the Brutes entered. No one wanted to be in those areas for long.

My family, along with the other families that lived in our area, already had our own plan to evacuate. We were fortunate enough to still be miles away from the front-line – a good distance of over twenty miles in spite of the fact that Mariana City was still being heavily besieged. We were even more fortunate that we had a means of escape immediately available to us.

One particularly wealthy neighbour in our community of well-to-do villas, Mr Hessen, owned a private space yacht, the _Scheherazade_. She was sleek and impressive, coloured a gleaming white and was equipped with her own slipspace drive, which Hessen apparently often used for business trips and private vacations. He agreed – along with everyone else in the area – that his yacht should be our evacuation ship, and succeeded in obtaining clearance from the military to do so. He quickly prepared it for launch.

It was strange to prepare to leave the place I had known all my life as home. I had never left New Tahiti before, and it still surprises me to this day that I was able to cope mentally with doing so as it was reduced to ashes. That is not to say that it did not affect me - but I still consider it a miracle that neither myself nor my mother and father suffered a nervous breakdown.

We all made a decision to travel light - packing would cost time that we did not have. I left my home with nothing more than an extra pair of pyjamas, a wash-bag with basic toiletries and the clothes that I wore. It was the first day of my life as a hapless refugee - but I could have had it so much worse.

When we all gathered at Hessen's private airstrip to leave on the _Scheherazade_ , hours after witnessing the shoot-down of that Covenant Corvette, it was plain to see that our world would soon burn.

The remaining Corvettes, staying out of the range of the mass drivers, were supporting their ground forces with plasma bombardment, softening up the Army troopers and driving them back further into the city. Covenant ships were already reported as having glassed cities and towns elsewhere on the planet at low altitude – perhaps that was the reason for the orange tinge in the sky, and the dark clouds further away. We could hear the explosions of heavy plasma and artillery fire for miles around.

For now, the Covenant was being held back from overrunning the area around Mariana City. Anti-aircraft batteries kept their Phantom gunships and Banshee fighters clear of the local airspace; I could see the bursts of flak combined with the orange-tinted streaks of SAMs, and Covenant aircraft being shot down.

If we were to have a chance of getting away, the time was now. But events took a different course.

I remember that we were about to begin the process of boarding the ship, having left most of our possessions behind – when I heard the sound of Mr Hessen's hunting rifle firing from somewhere in the nearby forest, followed by an inhuman snarl and the sound of some kind of energy weapon.

We all froze. He had been checking the perimeter with several others who owned guns in the neighbourhood of villas, making sure everything was clear while his pilot got the ship started. Something had clearly gone wrong. _Very_ wrong.

Several other shots were fired, and one of the other armed men came running back, shouting for us to get on the ship and leave, before he was silenced by a bolt of sharp green energy passing through his skull. We all stood in terror as he dropped without a sound.

It was then that they emerged from the trees; a dozen birdlike, reptilian creatures, some covered with feathers, others without a plumage but with quills on their heads – though these were absent on a couple of them. Several of the aliens carried the handheld energy shields their kind were said to favour in battle, but most were armed with long rifles of various designs. They moved like a flock of birds, staying close to one another and constantly squawking and quacking in an incomprehensible dialect.

I knew what they were, of course; I'd heard all about the Jackals and their Skirmisher cousins in the news bulletins on Waypoint. All of us present stood there, frozen in terror as the creatures closed distance with us.

What were they doing here? The alien forces were reported as being held back by the Army many miles away. Not that it mattered; they were here now and there was nowhere to run.

"My God…" my father gasped. Most of us were stunned in terrified silence. The younger children were mewling with fright, some of the women present were already weeping with horror, one or two of our party were becoming hysterical as others tried in vain to shut them up.

We were dead. The news had made it clear the Covenant planned to wipe out the human race, and the Kig-Yar had a particular reputation for savagery. Stories from the front suggested that they ate as well as killed humans who fell into their hands – in some cases POWs were reported as being eaten alive. Many massacres of civilians on the ground were carried out by Grunts, Skirmishers and Jackals that reportedly tore women and children apart with their bare claws.

I knew I was going to die, right there and then. I saw three Jackals armed with those elegant, violet carbines point their weapons at us, ready to fire. I closed my eyes and hugged my mother, waiting for the inevitable.

The last thing I remembered thinking was what the afterlife – if there was one – would look like when I reached it. I hoped I would see my sister again - perhaps dying would not be so bad, after all. I had often heard it said as being no different than going into the next room, whenever a grandparent or elderly friend or acquaintance passed away.

I'd heard it said when Fern was lost, too. If I was to pass into that room, I'd be with my family; all of us together again. I felt strangely content, as if nothing mattered anymore.

However, fate had a surprise in store for me – and everyone else who was gathered in that place, on that day.

The shots never came – or if they were going to come, they were averted by a low hissing sound. I heard it clearly - along with the persistent thunder of distant guns - and knew that I was still in this world. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the Jackals were keeping their guns trained on us; but they didn't fire. They remained in that position, squawking and gesturing with their gun barrels for us to keep our distance.

 _What?_

They were then joined by another of the heavily feathered aliens - a Skirmisher. This one was clad in green armour, armed with a needle rifle and wounded in the arm, probably by a grazing bullet from Hessen's rifle. It moved closer, squawking and hissing at us, gesturing in a direction away from the _Scheherazade._ We all understood the message and stepped a distance away from the ship, where we kneeled on the ground. The three Jackals kept us at gunpoint, somewhat more content.

We were still frightened, but confusion was etched on our faces. Several people whispered nervously.

What was this? Weren't the Covenant supposed to be killing us instead of taking us prisoner? Why not put a few energy and needle rounds through our heads and get it over with?

There was another Skirmisher who I was quick to notice, standing in the midst of those who were holding us prisoner, looking like he was at the head of it all. I focused my attention on him.

He was armed with a particle beam rifle - the optimum weapon of all Kig-Yar snipers - and wearing the high-tech helmet and green armour that their commandos wore. I noticed that this specimen had several scars on its body, and a particularly deep, nasty one over its left jaw. On its left hand, one of its three talons was missing. It was also visibly older than the others - he must have been a veteran of many battles.

The beam rifle-wielding Skirmisher lowered its weapon, quacking in a calm tone to its comrades, which made it easy to see that this was their leader – perhaps the equivalent of a Human senior sergeant or petty officer. It turned to look at us, keeping a steady eye on its new captives. It then slowly and deliberately shouldered its rifle, before stowing it on its back, presumably onto a magnetic weapons strip similar to those used by UNSC personnel.

This senior individual then took several steps towards us, before moving his handicapped left hand to put a single clawed digit on the lip of his jaws, while reaching back with his right to tap the stowed beam rifle with a talon. The message was clear; _keep quiet and don't try anything_.

We took the hint.

Was that alien the one who had prevented the others from firing? If so, why would he do that? Why spare Humans now, when he and his kind had brutally slaughtered so many in the past? None of us who were there that day could bring ourselves to believe what we were seeing.

Four of the other seven Kig-Yar spread out around the perimeter and secured it, while the three that were armed with energy shields and plasma pistols ran up the ramp into the grounded yacht.

Within seconds two of them came back – the third stayed in the ship – forcing the pilot out of the yacht with butts from their energy shields. The man put up little resistance – he was unarmed – and joined the rest of us as we kneeled on the ground in front of our captors.

The pilot looked just as bewildered as everyone else, unable to believe that they hadn't just killed him. Still, he managed to tell us something even more unexpected and far-fetched.

"That buzzard bastard who dragged me out of the cockpit," he hissed, "he's firin' up the ship...didn't think they knew how to work it."

He was proved to be wrong as the yacht's engines began to hum and roar, readying the craft for immediate take-off.

It was now obvious what these aliens wanted. They seemed to be looking to get out of here quickly, just like us. For that, they needed the ship.

Even so, this whole thing was just so… _odd_ to me, even as I knelt under the barrels of Covenant rifles. Why were they trying to get away with our ship? Were they looting it, or did their superiors need it for some plan? I did remember hearing that the Kig-Yar were pirates – there were regular reports of their ships attacking freighters and looting just about anything aboard. But that still didn't explain what they were doing this far behind UNSC lines – or why they had not killed us.

Everyone else was just as befuddled as I was - though many were still terrified. There was still the occasional whimper that occasionally had to be silenced. Yet this situation was so bizarre that the dominant facial expression was a dumbstruck, open-mouthed stare.

Whatever the reason, they were quick to get aboard the _Scheherazade_. The Jackals and Skirmishers around the perimeter boarded first, flocking swiftly up the ramp like agitated birds. They were just as swiftly followed by those that were guarding us, though they kept us in the sights of their weapons as they moved up the ramp. Their scarred leader was the last to leave.

As he did so, he looked back at us, regarding us with his old, weary eyes. In turn, I stared with incomprehension at this source of unexpected mercy as the sounds of war raged on in the distance.

In those alien eyes that I met - eyes which I would have believed were simply the cold eyes of a monster - I thought I could almost see something. Something more than everything I had ever been told about the Covenant. However, the moment did not last. The alien broke his stare, slowly turning his head away.

His movements seemed different now from the combat ready, aggressive, on-edge stance we had seen from him and his comrades earlier. Now they were drained, slow, wearisome - as if he carried a great weight on his shoulders. It was only after a couple of seconds that the Kig-Yar leader regained his natural alertness and dashed up the ramp.

No sooner had he boarded that the yacht took off into the sky, leaving us behind. I watched it soar higher and higher, until it vanished into the clouds. The UNSC anti-aircraft guns didn't fire on it – their controlling AI must have registered it as one of ours.

We slowly stood up again, struggling to make sense of what had just happened, unable to comprehend that those aliens had spared our lives. Not all of us had been spared though; Mr Hessen's body and those of the other three men with guns lay where they fell.

It was at least a quarter of an hour before the sound of several Warthog engines filled the airstrip, and the Army troopers arrived. Their officer was quick to the point.

"What the hell happened here?"

"Jackals," my father explained, though his voice was distant. He was still bewildered by what had just happened. "Skirmishers, too. They stole our escape yacht; killed the owner, left us behind."

"Probably the same Jackals we've been chasing these past several hours," the Lieutenant reckoned. "They were spotted after infiltrating behind our lines. We found and took care of some Brute Stalkers some way back from them." His face then took on a look of pure scepticism. "You're saying they didn't even _try_ to kill you?"

My father nodded, while I gulped in relief when I heard that those cloaked Brutes had been in the area. If they had reached us, we would all have been killed for certain. Yet the same should have been the case when the Jackals reached us. It was the case _every_ time Jackals reached human civilians, according to all the news I'd heard. None of what we had just witnessed made sense.

"They just took the ship and left."

The soldier seemed to be as puzzled as we were, but he let the matter rest.

"We'd better get you out of here," he announced. "The Covies are pushing closer and closer to the city – it'll only be a matter of time before they secure a position here. I'll arrange for you to be taken to Mariana – you can get a ride from the spaceport down there. There are still plenty of evac birds available."

* * *

The soldiers were quick to get us to the city. They loaded us onto the available warthogs, and called for other vehicles which soon arrived. We were driven to the Mariana City spaceport, but these events and those that followed were all a blur to me, and still are. Perhaps I was just too relieved at having survived the prior ordeal to commit anything to memory.

We were then loaded onto a slipspace transport liner. As we left, the last image I would have of my home was played out before me, through the porthole of the transport. What was happening right at that moment ensured that what I saw that day would definitely not remain a blur. The first glassing I had ever personally witnessed - and I hope, the last - took place before my eyes.

Many aboard were numbed to expressionless silence as they watched. Others turned away, while others watched only to break down into tears and wails.

Through the windows of the craft, we had a perfect view of the Covenant fleet as it began to turn the beautiful planet into a smoking ball of molten glass. This was still the early stages of the glassing, where the warships burned select areas of the planet from low altitude as well as from orbit. Their concentrated beams of energy painted the green, lush surface orange with their fire, while thick black clouds of dust, smoke and white-hot steam from the boiled lakes and oceans filled the atmosphere - the planet was being rapidly suffocated as well burned alive.

I knew that I was watching the death of millions of people. Not everyone had been able to escape as we had.

I kept my gaze fixed on the burning, smouldering sphere that just yesterday had been my home, with a perfect vantage in orbit that allowed everyone to see all those lush forests, all that beautiful coastline, all those memories – burned and vaporised into nothingness.

This world had been my childhood, a beautiful, well-populated, prosperous, happy world. And now it was gone.

Somehow, I did not tear myself away from the viewing port – but I felt the death of my home planet along with everything I had known, like a heavy, unbearable weight in my chest. Tears soon flowed. Sadness overcame me – while anger welled up like magma in a volcano.

It might have been impotent anger, but I didn't care. I wanted to get back at those who destroyed my home – who had destroyed my life. I cursed myself that I was not old enough to enlist and fight, to take up arms against those who burned away my beloved home.

However, I'm also not ashamed to say that I felt relief just as much. The Covenant might kill me later, but they had failed to kill me today. I also still had my family – something left of my former life, of this place…I was privileged in that sense. I knew there were others on board who had no doubt lost their entire families, left behind on what was now a ball of ash and molten rock. They would have nothing left of New Tahiti before it burned.

There was also another thought streaming through my mind that helped temper all of that anger and hatred; I was alive because of Covenant soldiers who showed mercy. Not because I'd been saved by fellow humans, our own soldiers whose duty it was to protect us – I was allowed to live by the Covenant. How could I ever make sense of that?

The view soon vanished into darkness as we entered slipspace.

* * *

It was two weeks before we arrived at our destination, as the ship took several detours to try to throw the Covenant off, in compliance with the Cole protocol. Our destination was Sigma Octanus IV, of all places. I had thought Earth would have been the safer place for refugees like us, but of course I was proved wrong; the homeworld was attacked three days later. That news only served to crush our spirits even more.

We remained at Sigma Octanus for the rest of the war in a miserable, decrepit refugee camp, which we shared with those already displaced by the failed Covenant invasion of that world. Some, though, had just as much anger for UNSC forces - it had been a HAVOC nuclear warhead that had destroyed Cote D'azur, after all.

Those many long months that we spent as refugees passed by slowly. Although we had calendars to tell the time, there was almost no communication with the other colonies or Earth – the COM grid on Sigma Octanus had been heavily damaged during the Covenant assault in July. It was a miracle that the UNSC was still able to maintain a single supply line.

It was a hard life, without much hope for the future as one piece of knowledge, one dreaded certainty, hung over us like an ever present dark storm cloud; that the Covenant would return to finish what they started on this planet. It almost felt like purgatory. Nevertheless, there was a sense of solidarity between all of those that had lost their homes, and that made the experience somewhat more bearable.

But shrugging off the loss of all you have ever known is no simple feat. Many of us made homeless by the war were now hollow husks, shadows of what we had been – I know that my parents were. They'd lost their daughter and their home within a week.

Others burned with hatred, and quickly enlisted into the forces the first chance they got. I know I would have – I tried to soon after arriving. I even lied about my age to the recruiter, but my father caught me and brought me back to our allotment.

I remained angry at him for a long time. Now I firmly believe I owe him my life – a fifteen year old boy-soldier, rushed through training as new recruits were at the time, would not have lasted long in the final battle for Earth. My parents didn't want to lose another child. I was all they had left.

Then a very different piece of news came months later, via a courier ship sent from Earth, due to the on-going repairs to the planetary communications relay. A piece of news that was sent to every home in the refugee camp, that we had to play again on a recorder and watch several times before we could accept it as the truth.

The war was over. The Covenant had collapsed. Their advance had been halted at Earth. The threat of three decades was ended overnight.

We couldn't believe it. A good deal of us didn't believe it; after all, the media had lied to us before about holding the enemy back. To hear this news now only to find it to be false later would have been an even greater emotional blow than the sight of our burning home. We had had too many of our dreams and hopes shattered to believe yet another optimistic news report.

But then, as the battered colonial communications network came back online, we learned it was the truth. When the war was formally declared over that next March, I cried with joy.

The rest, as they say, is history.

* * *

 **September 8, 2565 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Vancouver City, URNA, Earth, Sol System**

All of these thoughts, all of these memories; they came back to me, in the dusty sunlight of my office in Vancouver, when I read the almost unbelievable letter I received one day in September. The smoke from my latest cigarette climbed and drifted from the ashtray on my desk and around my head, mixing with the hot, stuffy air as I struggled to believe what I was reading.

It had been a long time; thirteen years – since my homeworld fell. The memory will never leave me. But in that time, I've been able to rebuild my life.

My parents and I remained in that refugee camp for months. I was luckier than many others – the precise number of orphans created by the Great War is still unknown, thought it probably extends into the many millions. I still had a family, if not a home.

Eventually, we were able to apply for a resettlement programme on Earth – my mother and father had no desire to live on any of the remaining colonies, some of which were reportedly turning insurrectionist. The homeworld was the safest place right now.

We arrived on Earth in the summer of 2553, and found a home in Vancouver city. Although the Covenant assault on Earth had affected areas of every continent it had largely been concentrated in Africa, where the giant Forerunner artefact still stands; there were still many parts that were left untouched. The Northern territories of the United Republic of North America were among these, albeit swollen with refugees from the Covenant attack on Cleveland.

My father found himself a new job; I found myself a school and then a college, where I developed my interest in journalism. Once I finished college, I made it a career and became a reporter, starting at my local paper and eventually moving to Waypoint.

I reported on the uncertain post-war atmosphere of the time and the brushfire conflicts with the insurrection in the Outer Colonies, wrote articles on colonial relations and took part in documentaries on the victims of the war which I had experienced first-hand in my young life. One award-winning documentary film which I took part in as an interviewer told a full account of the war from stories of UNSC veterans and commanders – including the stories of the legendary Spartans.

Yet somehow, I felt this was not enough. I found my obsession with the war wouldn't go away – and it soon went beyond looking at humanity's experience.

I realised even then that as painful as our story was, it was not the whole story. The other side, which is still hated and feared throughout humanity's recovering population, was still shrouded in mystery. Regardless of my feelings towards the Covenant and its soldiers, I couldn't deny my fascination with this historical blind-spot of the war, and wanted to know more.

But when I brought this up during meetings with my editor, I was frequently chastised by my colleagues – not always in jest – as a "Covie lover". This is still a time when asylum seekers from the former Covenant Empire are kept in guarded and segregated zones on Earth. Many others said I was playing with fire – relations with our former enemies, including the Sangheili, are still far from friendly. Covenant remnants and loyalist cultists remain active years after the war. It could be a ridiculous form of suicide for any journalist to ask the other side for their accounts.

However, I fought my corner – to truly understand everything that had happened, the Covenant story also needed to be told to humanity. No doubt some of my fellow human beings were beginning to ask the same questions I was asking; how did our former enemies justify to themselves what they were doing? What was their experience of the war? How did they come to view the species which they had tried to wipe out, and had been indoctrinated to believe were vermin?

How were they trying to rebuild their societies after finding, suddenly and dramatically, that everything they had been told and taught their whole lives was a lie? Would it ever be possible to reconcile with them, after all they had done? What could their stories tell the Human race about us, including our own dark histories? Could we learn from their stories?

I also had to fight my own demons and lingering hatred. Visions of my home, burning at the hands of those I proposed to interview, would not stay away. They visited me again and again in nightmares, often after discussions about Covenant interviews. I soon found, through much self-reflection, something which I had not initially acknowledged but could no long deny; that my own contradictory experience in New Tahiti's last moments - losing my home to Covenant and then having my life spared by them - also played a part in my curiosity about the other side.

I soon realised that I had, for my own sanity, to go through with my proposal. Perhaps, in a strange way, meeting our former enemies was a form of therapy in itself.

For that reason, I was one of the first to interview Sangheili veterans of the war. Accounts from their perspective had come into the public domain in the wake of the peace treaty of 2553, as well as from the immigrants on Earth and the colonies – but access to their territory was not available for some time due to lingering tension with the UNSC and Sangheilios's own civil conflicts.

When the chance finally came to hear the full Sangheili story in 2560, I seized it.

The compilation of accounts I assembled was published and became a bestseller on Earth, in addition to being adapted into a television documentary which I co-produced, using my audio and visual recordings made for my writings. In that book, I attempted to explain how a process of indoctrination from birth – along with the fact that the Covenant had stood for thousands of years – enabled the former protectors of the Prophets to obey their masters without question.

I heard accounts of brutal battles and world-burnings from former shipmasters that glassed our colonies, who explained how they were numbed by a duty they were constantly told was honourable. And I learned from every one of my interviewees, from the lowliest minor to the most honoured Zealot, just how costly the fighting was for the Covenant forces – costly enough for some of them to consider humanity to be the bravest and most tenacious enemy the Sangheili have ever faced.

I also learned first-hand how a process of disillusionment with the war began among portions of the Sangheili as the conflict dragged on, which laid the foundation for their rebellion in the Great Schism. I discovered the devastation that was wrought upon their society by vicious internal conflict, both within the Covenant and among themselves, that left all the promises made by the Prophets shattered with the sacred Halo rings.

Yet as privileged as I felt in hearing these stories, I realised the full story of the Human-Covenant war still had yet to be told. The Covenant was made up of eight intelligent species in total – the Sangheili were the second-most powerful, but they were not the only one.

More often than not, they were not unbiased in their opinions; many still referred to their fellow Covenant races with derision. The Jiralhanae and other species were still fiercely hated. There is even greater bitterness within the former Covenant Empire than there is between the former subject peoples of the Covenant and the human race.

All the time I wrote about the war, I kept thinking about those Kig-Yar that spared the life of my family and neighbours, who stole the _Scheherazade_ while we looked on. Even as I listened to the Sangheili side of the story, I wanted to someday hear the stories of the other soldiers and servants of the Covenant – but that would be virtually impossible for a long time.

The Jiralhanae were out of the question – the myriad packs of Doisac are still violently hostile to Human and Sangheili alike, and their homeworld is still a no-go area due to their on-going civil wars and the Sangheili blockade. Many who venture into Brute Space are frequently attacked.

The Yanme'e homeworld of Palamok, along with its colonised moons and neighbouring planets, remains closed to outsiders to this day. Commerce with that species is restricted to trading posts established on the outskirts of that system, and communication with the Yanme'e Hives is still limited to a basic level.

The Unggoy were a possibility, as asylum seekers of that species can be found on the colonies – but the majority had returned to their own homeworld, and those who still serve in the Sangheili economy and armed forces have little freedom to speak under their masters. Those Unggoy that I was able to talk to were only able to give basic accounts of what they experienced, though I do hope to find a more substantial account from a member of that species one day.

Several other Covenant races were also out of the question. Communication problems with the Lekgolo continue to persist, while the level of access and communication with Huragok is highly restricted by the Office of Naval Intelligence. And no San Shyuum has been seen alive since the end of the war.

That left only one other species – the one that I had direct contact with as a teenager. The Kig-Yar clans, like the Jiralhanae, remained classed by the UNSC as hostile for some time after the war; not least because of their persistent love of piracy and links to insurrectionists.

However, the Earth-Eayn agreement of 2555, formally signed by their crudely established clan authorities, changed the situation. This was followed by trade agreements and the profits created helped to further rebuild the economy of the UEG. Kig-Yar pirates persist in their activities, but the majority have settled for peaceful trading.

Many have commented that Kig-Yar are more tolerant of humans than other former Covenant races, the Sangheili included. Granted, this is largely because they consider trading with any species to be in their best interests as long as it is profitable for them. Earth and colony-based businesspeople have praised the traders of that species for their pragmatism, which they have said to know no bounds.

They also have a difference that marks them from the rest of their former allies – the children of Eayn enjoyed autonomy within the Covenant that many others did not. One faction of Kig-Yar, mostly pirates and smugglers, even enjoyed independence under the nose of the Prophets. Not even the mighty Covenant Empire was able to fully contain the "Jackals" and their independent nature. High Charity often had to make concessions to ensure Kig-Yar loyalty – usually at the expense of their long-time rivals, the Unggoy.

The experience of the last moments of New Tahiti still fresh in my mind, I soon became fascinated with the Kig-Yar. Even years working on my Sangheili accounts would not dull my obsession as a reporter. I wrote articles on the new trade agreements and the relationship between our two species.

Co-operation and trade between Human and Kig-Yar is common knowledge - but it still fascinates me that even during the height of the Great War isolated pockets of humans, usually insurrectionists, found partners in the Kig-Yar as well as enemies. Even as early as the Battle of Installation 00 in December 2552, the species was trading peacefully with the remaining outer-colonies, isolated due to the breakdown in the UEG communication network. These trading efforts undoubtedly helped in the colonial reconstruction – and influenced the rise of the so-called "Second Insurrection" after the Great War.

I wanted desperately to interview a Kig-Yar veteran of the war – but it would be another five years before I finally got the opportunity to do so – and it would be a greater opportunity than I had ever imagined.

And so it was, on September 8th 2565, I found myself reading an extraordinary message in my Vancouver press office that shook me to the core. The office secretary delivered it to me personally before running it by my editor, having already read it in the internal e-mail system before printing it for my viewing.

In my profession as a reporter where I have to deal with multiple messages, reports and pieces of information every day, I've developed a distaste for staring at screens too often. If something can be read on a piece of paper, I instantly ask for said paper. This message was no exception.

"It's what you've been waiting for Mr Crawford," the secretary said, her expression as ecstatic as it was emotional. She knows my life story – I've written about it often enough. That is also why the sender of this message knew that it would strike a chord with me.

The note came from the PR department of a private freight company. They had apparently read the article I wrote about my experience on New Tahiti for Inter-System News, along with my book and other pieces of work I'd previously done. They had watched the documentaries I had contributed to on Waypoint, which is broadcast throughout the colonies. They were kind enough to inform me of an interesting development regarding one of their company assets.

There were three surprises in this letter. The first surprise was that this company – which operated shipping routes between Eayn, New Harmony, Venezia and other outer colony worlds – and was reportedly expanding into the Inner Colonies – was not entirely human. It was a partnership, a private company founded by a Human businessman from New Harmony – and a seasoned Kig-Yar merchant. The company was staffed by members of both species.

This isn't entirely unheard of course, given the level of trade between our two species.

This company was also not based on Earth or one of the Inner Colonies; rather, it was based on an Outer Colony world that had long been considered of ambiguous loyalty to the UNSC - Byzantium, in the Thracia system.

This world, though one of the UEG's outer colonies, has over the past twelve years come to be considered a major trading hub, a cosmopolitan, inter-racial meeting point for traders, travellers and wanderers. In short, a galactic melting pot. So much so that the colony's own independent defence force - and recently, even the autonomously governing administration - is known to include non-humans. Most relevant to my interest, however, was that the planet is one of those Human worlds known to be most frequented by Kig-Yar traders.

Kig-Yar trade and commerce guilds have more contacts with UEG colonies these days, thanks to the trade agreements. Most of these guilds have either based their operations on Kig-Yar and Human colony worlds - with this company, that was clearly the case. They utilised a diverse fleet of space-freighters; not just Kig-Yar ships but also human vessels, most of which were old and no doubt once pilfered in piracy. I read on with interest, and then came the third surprise – which proved to be the biggest revelation of all.

One of these human vessels was a yacht converted to a cargo freighter, manufactured by Sinoviet's luxury engineering branch. This particular yacht dated back to the Great War.

A yacht named _Scheherazade_.


	2. Prologue: Chapter 2 - Trau Fac

**Chapter Two: Trau Fac**

 **September 8, 2565 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Vancouver City, Earth, Sol System**

My reaction was indescribable. At first I wasn't willing to believe it.

"Is this some kind of joke Martha?" I asked my secretary. She's pulled pranks on me in the past, even outside of April 1st.

"No, if you look, it's signed by the company's PR director," she pointed out. Indeed, the note from the shipping company in which this Kig-Yar trader was one of two joint-proprietors was genuine enough. There was also another surprise. Trau Fac - the Kig-Yar co-proprietor - had expressed his desire to meet with me at his home on Byzantium.

The gravity of all this hit me as I leaned back in my press office chair. I tried to keep calm as I took in all the implications of the revelation I'd just received. A relic from a major event in my past, from the day my world burned, had turned up in the hands of a Kig-Yar.

I tried to tell myself that a good deal of what I'd read in that letter was not a surprise. The Jackals are well-known for scavenging anything and everything, including stolen material. A huge variety of ships, weapons and equipment, UNSC and Covenant alike, has frequently been found in the stores of Kig-Yar traders. They have a reputation as the Orion Arm's most proficient scrap merchants. That the _Scheherazade_ was in the hands of one of them could be a massive coincidence. The stolen yacht could have passed through many owners and black markets over the past decade before being purchased by this company.

At the same time, the most obvious yet fanciful thought wouldn't go away; could this Kig-Yar trader, living safely on a prosperous outer-colony and making a success of himself in the present, have been one of those that held my family, my neighbours and I at gunpoint back in '52? Had he been the one who allowed us to live, only to leave us behind while making off with the plunder? Was such an even bigger coincidence possible?

I tried to dismiss this thought as soon as it came - the odds against it being reality were astronomical - but it would not go away. Even if this individual had not been one of the Kig-Yar present that day, he likely knew something about where his acquired ship had come from. Whoever he was, I had some questions to ask him. The most personal and pressing of which was obvious; how did he get hold of that ship?

I began to consider the possibility of meeting this trader, and thought hard about what our meeting would be like. Could I trust myself not to fly into a rage, or even want to kill him? I still had memories of my planet being burned. Whether he had been one of those who spared us or not, he was still likely part of the military force that destroyed my home. He owned the vessel that was meant to have been a lifeboat for my family and neighbours - that had been _stolen_ from us.

Even as a journalist - part of a profession that is supposedly meant to be objective - I am still just another human being with very human emotions that cannot always be controlled. Still, I knew I would have to try, as I had done in the past when talking with other former Covenant servicemen. Even then, it had been a challenge.

It was another surprise that he would even want to meet me – most ex-Covenant war veterans, including the Kig-Yar, were still lukewarm at best when it came to discussing their experiences with Humans. There was every possibility that if he was secretly involved in piracy as well as trading, he might take me hostage for ransom.

Yet in spite of all those risks and fears, I finally decided that, for the sake of my profession - and for the sake of my own coming to terms with the past - I had to go through with this. After a long period of negotiation, I gained tacit approval from my editor.

There were still clear security concerns, though, and as such I made the utmost preparation for this trip. I hired two personal bodyguards, made travel arrangements, secured my financing, readied my recording equipment, obtained a translation device and contacted the company run by the Kig-Yar trader in question, whose name I soon learnt. I let him know I would be coming as soon as my preparations began - and I would give him prior communication of my visit before setting out.

After nearly three weeks of preparation, I set out on my quest and made my way to the spaceport in Vancouver. I boarded a flight for Byzantium, obtaining a ticket for the _Hymen's Torch_ , the first of the new _Fireflash-_ class space-liners. These ships are capable of reaching distant star systems in just over a day, thanks to their Forerunner-derived slipspace drives. As it happened, our flight to Byzantium took two days. My bodyguards followed closely.

* * *

 **September 28, 2565 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Byzantium, Thracia System**

Like it's ancient namesake, the outer colony of Byzantium - first settled seventy years before the Harvest first contact of 2525 - is a true sight to behold.

It is a temperate world, with a mostly sub-tropical climate comparable to the Mediterranean on Earth, and a life-bearing surface consisting of a single continent and numerous islands scattered in a vast global ocean. There are no large moons - but the planet is ringed by a vast asteroid field, containing floating rocks of all shapes and sizes. Navigating through these to the planet's surface requires skilled and cautious piloting. As such, all pilots who travel this route are of the highest standard, and ours was no exception.

Just as the capital of Constantinople was shielded for centuries by massive double walls and a naturally defensive position, the colony possesses a strong natural defence further strengthened by fortification. The vast ring of asteroids surrounding its lush, pristine form, further fortified over the past two decades by UNSC bases fitted with mass drivers and missile pods, ensures the protection from Jiralhanae raiders, Kig-Yar and Human pirates, Sangheili fundamentalist groups, Human insurrectionists and other dangers that continue to plague Human and Sangheili colonies alike.

The UNSC presence was also installed with other motivations in mind - even before the Great War, Byzantium had long been on the list of Outer Colonies with sympathies towards the Insurrection. Though that often-forgotten inter-human conflict never reached the level it did in the Thracia System that it did elsewhere, the reputation of the UEG here is lukewarm at best.

The fear of a Venezia-style declaration of independence was always paramount in the minds of Earth's immediate post-war administration. As such, Byzantium was one of the many Outer Colonies which were offered the carrot of greater self-rule after the war, while receiving a beefed-up military presence to prevent secession. This arrangement was accepted, and has remained to this day.

Such a declaration of independence with so many potential Kig-Yar arms dealers, coming in the wake of Venezian secession, was too unacceptable for the UNSC to contemplate. It is no coincidence that - following the non-aggression treaty signed between the UEG and the independent quasi-government of Venezia - a similar arrangement was made with that world, leading to the establishment of a Naval monitoring station which remains in the Qab system to this day.

Another feature in common with the capital of Byzantium, the ancient city of Constantinople, is that within these great fortifications lies a prosperous, cosmopolitan society, located at a strategic position between different worlds. The Y'Deio system lies no more than a dozen light years away - and the closest inner colonies not much further than that. As a result, the planet has become a major hub of trade between Human and Kig-Yar - this relationship can be very visibly seen as one passes through the planet's asteroid field.

It was very clear to me, that day in September, as I looked out of the window of the _Hymen's Torch_ on approach to the planet.

Here, I could see the crooked, jagged forms of Kig-Yar structures very clearly alongside both UNSC military and Byzantine civilian structures. The species has millennia of experience in colonising asteroids (the T'Vaoan subspecies has its origins on one such formation), and this is very noticeable in Byzantium's orbit. Non-human architecture - both of the modern, mass-produced Covenant style and more traditional, cobbled-together Kig-Yar designs - lies alongside the functional, utilitarian forms familiar for residents of the UEG colony worlds.

The Kig-Yar have long since founded their own colonies in the numerous asteroids of the Thracia system, and these are often interlinked with their human counterparts via docking systems. Ships clearly of Kig-Yar - particularly T'Vaoan - design can be seen openly docking with the orbital starports, and operating together with both colonial and UNSC ships. Asteroid mines operated by both Earth-based corporations and Eayn-based commerce guilds are the most common meeting places of the two cultures in Byzantium's orbit.

In addition, Kig-Yar militias - whose origins far pre-date the Covenant era - are almost fully integrated into the Byzantine colonial guard, assisting both the autonomous planetary authorities and the UNSC in anti-piracy, planetary protection and counter-terrorist operations. I caught sight of one such operation on our approach.

Peering through my passenger window, I could see a UNSC frigate approaching what looked to be a privately-owned light freighter of typical design - a propulsion/command pod attached by an umbilical and magnetic couplings to a cargo container ten-times the size - that was being suspiciously hasty about departing this area.

Sheltering alongside the larger Human warship was a small, rust-coloured Kig-Yar shuttle. It was of a squat, ugly design, a far cry from the elegance of a Phantom transport or any other mainstream Covenant vessel. Judging from its size, it could probably hold no more than six passengers.

In this scenario, however, they were no doubt armed; the small umbilical fixed to the craft's side betrayed the fact that this particular variant of a mass-produced shuttle design was designed as a boarding craft.

The frigate - a _Paris_ -class vessel, the name on the side identifying it as the UNSC _Wellington_ \- closed with the suspect freighter in less than thirty seconds. The targeted craft attempted to turn and flee, clearly ignoring the radio warnings being broadcast by her pursuers. But before it could do so, the frigate took action - to the my own shock and those of my fellow passengers - by sending a short salvo of autocannon fire from its point-defence guns, which struck the engines at the command and propulsion module with pin-point accuracy.

The engines blew up on contact with the lethal tracer fire, the gouts of flame that erupted disappearing as quickly as they came in the vacuum, while a small debris field began to disperse in the weightless space. The rest of the vessel, however, including the pressurized section of the propulsion pod and the much larger attached cargo container, remained intact. Throughout our own vessel, I could hear passengers gasping, giving cries and profane exclamations of surprise - and shockingly enough, even cheering with victory.

It was at this point that the Kig-Yar boarding craft moved in, crossing the space to the crippled target in just over a minute. I saw it dock at the pressurized cargo container, but after that point the engagement was obscured by a passing asteroid. I learned later that the freighter was owned by an arms trader suspected and found to be supplying weaponry to the Covenant remnants, as well as Insurrectionist groups. A whole stash of such weaponry was found in the hold, and its crew were apprehended by T'Vaoan commandoes from the boarding shuttle.

The operation I had witnessed was considered routine by the local defence forces. There could be no clearer sign of the success of inter-species integration on Byzantium - and on most other outer colony worlds.

Our passenger craft descended effortlessly through the atmosphere towards the surface of the blue-green planet and arrived in the airspace of Dyrrachium, the planetary capital, located on the Western Coast of the sole continent, Epirus. To the west of the capital lies the vast expanse of the global Belissarian ocean, and numerous island chains; most of which are home to farms, fishing ports, mining operations, or have been left untouched for tourists and holidaymakers.

Dyrrachium is a coastal city, making it an aquatic port as well as a spaceport. Minos Haven, where the capital is located, is a natural anchorage, with imposing high cliffs lining much of the inside of the bay as well as the outside. Around the city-side of the haven however, these cliffs give way to sandy beaches and the piers, promenades and port facilities of the harbor.

The city itself is an expanding metropolis, its dramatic growth over the past dozen years fuelled by both human and non-human immigration. This expansion can very clearly be seen from the air, in the form of sprawling suburbs and outskirts. The city contains the majority of Byzantium's planetary population of over 500,000, roughly three-quarters. Another 100,000 live in Thessalonica, the colony's second city which has rapidly emerged further south down the coast, while the rest live in numerous tiny settlements scattered throughout the islands, as well as on farming and fishing settlements in the lush green strip that covers the west coast of Epirus. The rest of the interior of this supercontinent is dominated by harsh deserts and mountains, settled only by a few isolated, often unmanned mining platforms extracting various ore deposits.

An estimated twenty percent of Byzantium's population is non-human, and though the overwhelming majority of Dyrrachium's architecture is of human design, non-human buildings have since arrived and are proudly shown on the colony's travel brochure. Some of the large, domed, purple-coloured structures which were designed by the Covenant as mass-production pre-fabs can be seen on approach to the spaceport.

Upon landing at the spaceport, the diversity of docked craft can be plainly seen - UEG civilian starliner transports, privately owned freighters, Kig-Yar shuttles and transport ships, Phantoms and Spirits (most of which looked to re-purposed as civil freighters). These were also interspersed with Pelicans, Albatrosses and even an old Condor dropship, all of which looked to be in-use with the Byzantine Colonial Guard as well as the UNSC garrison.

I took in the scene for a few minutes until the announcement came from the captain in the cockpit that all passengers were free to disembark. I shouldered my rucksack, left my seat and strode down the aisle, my hired bodyguards keeping close behind me.

After passing through the tedious process of baggage collection and customs checks (I did not fail to notice the jaundiced look that appeared on the face of the customs officer upon hearing I was from Earth), my bodyguards and I made our way out of the spaceport entrance, where our pre-arranged minivan taxi waited.

As the minivan drove us to the Hotel, I continued to note the visible and incredible diversity of Byzantium. Alongside human pedestrians, Kig-Yar are the most prominent non-humans that are immediately noticeable. Individuals of all three sub-species can be seen here - though they are not alone. Unggoy - now a common sight in most UEG colonies with an alien immigrant population - also walk the streets relatively unmolested.

This latter fact is unusual, given the large Kig-Yar population on this planet and the fact that Unggoy immigrants are frequently easy targets for Human supremacists. Many racially-motivated riots, murders and terrorist attacks by groups such as Sapien Sunrise have been directed against Unggoy, due to the large proportion of that species among Covenant asylum seekers, as well as their high birth-rate. Just last month, a crowded Unggoy home on Sigma Octanus was firebombed, killing several families of immigrant workers.

This incident received the usual ritual media condemnation, but it is just one of many incidents that illustrate the powerful xenophobic feeling within both Terran and Colonial society. It is also indicative of the tragic fact that, after hundreds of years of near-slavery and regular discrimination under the Covenant, most Unggoy now find that little has changed for them, caught between Human, Sangheili and Kig-Yar racism.

Here though, they enjoy reasonably better tolerance than elsewhere - in spite of the usual tension with the Kig-Yar. Other species that can be seen include the lesser known races of the fringe sectors of the former Covenant Empire; Yonhet, Pinata and Varuni are all known to call this world home. Even a few Sangheili and Jiralhanae can be found here - most of them off-world traders or mercenaries - and their imposing forms often resulting in other races giving them a wide berth.

The diversity of pedestrians on the streets is also reflected in the alien architecture of certain quarters of the city. As mentioned, human buildings still dominate Dyrrachium - the familiar glass, metal and concrete towers rule the skyline around the city centre.

Yet as we passed through the Kig-Yar quarter (we chose a hotel close to there, for practical reasons), I was blown away. We had stopped in the middle of a traffic jam, and our windows were open - and the first thing I noticed was the strong, salty aroma wafting into our car.

"Get a load of our birdlife," the taxi driver grunted, jerking his thumb out of the right side window. "They've got their nests all over the damn place."

I followed his gesture - and laid my eyes on one of the largest alien communities on any UEG colony world.

Non-human buildings had sprung up among their Terran counterparts - not simply the familiar indigo, crimson and violet-coloured spires and domes, but also the architecture and urban layout that was clearly traditional to Eayn. Here lay narrow streets and lanes, the main streets just wide enough for vehicles to pass through, lined with plasma torches that looked to be of native Eayn style, made of carved yellow wood rather than the purple metal of Covenant constructs. There were some signs of the human roads that had once had this space to themselves - including the one our Taxi was on - but they had long since been swallowed up in the sprawl of immigration.

The vehicles that travelled these cobbled streets were even more fascinating. There were hovercars and speeders that appeared to be miniaturised in order to fit in the narrow Kig-Yar lanes - they reminded me of the bubble cars still popular in Mediterranean Europe. They had probably been manufactured in Covenant factories for Kig-Yar tastes, and clearly fit easily in their cities. They included van-like creations as well as personnel transporters.

However, these were few and far between, probably as a result of the Covenant's collapse. Alongside these were more primitive vehicles; bizarre half-tracks with fronts that resembled a moped or snow mobile, supported by anti-grav units or even wheels at the front and treads at the back. The driver stood as he piloted the track-mobile, gripping the handles. In the rear there was a space for passengers and cargo. I could see whole families - parents driving, often with chicks strapped in behind them - winding through the streets in these things as the chugs and buzzes of their engines filled the air. It seemed to be a indigenous Kig-Yar design, rather than a Covenant creation, and it was by far the most common.

Keeping the contrast between high-tech and medieval, the modern powered vehicles shared the lanes with animal drawn wagons and carriages. These were pulled by strong, stocky, beasts of burden with tusks and horns that I could not identify. However, the taxi driver informed me they were native to this world and already domesticated by humans - the first alien settlers had just simply followed the local practices. There were even some carts hauled solely by Kig-Yar - strong T'Vaoans pulling the handles behind them, like rickshaw men on Earth.

Between the crowded streets stood stacked, almost nest-like structures of polished wood, wattle, daub, grey mud bricks and building material more commonly associated with modern human buildings, which had obviously been pilfered. Most were covered with vine-like plants - some sporting beautiful, alien flowers - that were clearly introduced from the Kig-Yar homeworld. The same applied to the many human structures still present here, which also had building extensions of wood, wattle and daub attached to them. Clearly Byzantium's immigrants - like all immigrants - had brought pieces of their old home with them, assembled them together on arrival and made their new home their own.

All throughout this alien quarter, the streets bustled with Kig-Yar going about their business - traffic, pedestrians, vendors operating both on foot and on covered market stalls. Only a few humans could be seen, clearly day visitors or tourists, sticking out like sore thumbs. I could not make out any Unggoy - they probably regarded this place as being a no-go area for their kind.

The buildings were clearly packed with Kig-Yar too, almost like overcrowded roosts or nests. On one balcony I could see a mother Ruuhtian with her brown furry chicks, which almost reminded of those of swans or some penguins (whether she was scolding them, nursing them or both, it was impossible to tell). In another building we passed by, crawling with the slow traffic, we could all see a female T'Vaoan squawking furiously out of an upstairs window at a male in the street below (likely her husband) over some domestic trouble - perhaps tardiness in going to work. The mate returned her ranting with calm, tired quacking.

I could even make a street some way away blocked up as a result of a traffic accident - a reckless hovercar driver had crashed into the back of a track-mobile carrying what looked to be fruit and groceries. It had been this incident that had apparently led to the traffic jam we were in. Enraged squawks and hisses flew back and forth between the two motorists, who looked to be on the verge of tearing out each other's throats, watched by Kig-Yar and human bystanders, some of which were holding the two belligerents back.

Then came a pair of Skirmishers - clad in what looked to be modified Commando harnesses - who arrived on the scene, stun batons and plasma pistols in their belts, looking intent on restoring order. I raised an eyebrow - the Kig-Yar are often characterised as a lawless species - yet they clearly at least had traffic cops. I did not get the chance to see them in action, however - the traffic picked up again and we quickly drove off.

Throughout the Kig-Yar quarter, their distinctive scent and bird-like calls filled the air. The jackdaw-like squawks, quacks and other calls, combined with the overwhelming smell, was strikingly reminiscent of a giant seabird colony on Earth.

"Noisy buggers, aren't they?" The driver grunted.

Such an environment - along with its residents - was clearly not popular with everyone on the planet. Our driver scowled as we left the Kig-Yar quarter. I asked him if he had a problem with them being here.

"No problems, so long as they stay in that space." His reply came out as a resentful growl. "And stop taking over any more of ours." He muttered under his breath.

" _Fucking seagulls_..."

I decided to leave my questioning at that.

* * *

The Hotel Pastides (named after a Byzantium-born Marine who was declared KIA at Reach with honours) lies just outside the Kig-Yar district, on an overlook facing the sea. As such, the journey there was not much longer.

My own suite was provided with a balcony that gave me a fine view of the coast and port. My entourage and I checked in, found our rooms - at that point I was finally left with some time to sort myself out and think things over.

My Waypoint pad also held a surprising new message - from Fac, my Kig-Yar contact. The first part of his message told me he had changed his plans, deciding to forgo meeting at his home in the Kig-Yar quarter and would meet me at one of their traditional teahouses, closer to the hotel, first thing tomorrow morning. Renowned on Eayn and its colony worlds, these establishments have long since become popular on human worlds with a Kig-Yar population. So popular, in fact, that Earth opened the doors to its first Kig-Yar teahouse only a year ago.

This particular place was literally on the other side of the street from my hotel, in lush human-planted botanical gardens that date back to Dyrrachium's foundation. That put our meeting place in a wonderfully convenient spot, and Fac was keen to insist that the majority of our meetings would take place there.

I raised an eyebrow - he had said _meetings_ \- I had assumed we would only have one or two, to discuss how he acquired the _Scheherazade._ The message however, made clear that he wanted to arrange multiple meetings, perhaps even a long-term contact if we both decided that such a proposal would be "necessary", in his words. It seemed rather excessive for an inquiry into a spacecraft purchase - perhaps he would explain that to me tomorrow.

As it turned out, however, he did explain the reason for more meetings - and I didn't have to wait until morning. Any notions that I might have entertained before - that I would be meeting this Trau Fac to find out how he had acquired the stolen escape yacht - were soon torpedoed by the final part of the message. Or rather, a single sentence and following paragraph that shook me to the core.

 _I have a story which will answer all your questions - but it is a long one._

 _If you are not prepared to hear it, then I am happy to simply tell you how I acquired the_ Scheherazade. _However, once I tell you how I did so, I am sure that you will still wish to hear my story. After all, how I acquired the_ Scheherezade _, thirteen Earth years ago,_ _is a major chapter of my story - and yours._

 _I look forward to seeing you presently._

 _Trau Fac_

I felt my palm comp slip from my hands. I did not even bend down to pick it up as it clattered to the floor.

My heart raced at this latest revelation. The unstated but obvious implication was all too clear.

 _Thirteen years ago. My story and yours_. Fac had been present when the _Scheherezade_ had been stolen, as I had been.

He was one of those who had taken it, right in front of my family and neighbours as we were being held hostage. He had been one of those Kig-Yar - one of those who spared our lives. My life.

I was barely able to sleep that night.

* * *

Morning came quickly on this world. Being a temperate-tropical planet in its summertime, that was only natural. As a child, I always loved the summer mornings - they lasted longer and woke you earlier, leaving so much more to do during the day.

It helped me prepare. There would certainly be a lot to do - a lot to talk about - this day.

I stepped through the gates of the botanical gardens, which were styled in much the same way as the gates to English stately homes. They bore the coat of arms of this world, which included a likeness of the _Byzantium_ , the colony ship of pioneers that first settled the planet in humanity's era of expansion. What an innocent time to have lived in.

The gardens themselves are dominated by plants collected across the planet's sole continent and surrounding islands, mixed in with Earth's rainforest species. Periwinkles, palms, ferns and banana trees, amongst others, occupy one sector of the gardens, the native species another - in the centre, close to where the Kig-Yar teahouse lies, they mix together. Since arrival of Byzantium's newest immigrants, flora from Eayn has also been introduced, increasing the diversity of the Byzantine gardens.

Many paths wind through in a serpentine fashion, like in all good public parks. One of these paths, leading into the centre, now bears a signpost in both English and _Ruuht'ka_ script; the language of Ruuhtian Kig-yar that serves as a _lingua_ _franca_ for all sub-species.

Beyond this point, straight on along the central path, lies a wire-frame arch covered with alien vines. Many sported the strange flowers I had seen earlier, though I could also see vines native to Earth wrapped among their counterparts from Eayn. There were also ferns and budlejas on either side of the arch. The intermixing of both worlds on this colony can even be seen in the flora, right at the entrance of the Dyrrachium Teahouse.

The teahouse itself (I later learned) is modelled on an example in Tilu City, one of Eayn's most ancient population centres, right down to the arch of vines. The Tilu Teahouse, like the city itself, dates back to before the annexation of Eayn and its inhabitants by the Covenant, and as such is one of the most high-priced and favoured haunts of wealthy Kig-Yar shipmasters and merchants. The Dyrrachium Teahouse serves a similar purpose - though the price is somewhat less, it is still regarded as part of Byzantium's ritzier sector of life.

The building itself is human, with extensions of alien construction that include the same stacked, nest-like levels on top. Eayn-style tapestries adorn its interior, along with other ornaments and furniture of clear Kig-Yar design. Like its forbear on their homeworld, the teahouse has an outdoor area, presided over by statues of famed Kig-Yar Shipmistresses and masters - and shaded outdoor tables that remind one of outdoor Cafes popular with humans in the more temperate regions of Earth.

I entered this area at the front of the building, passing a strange mix of human businessmen and local public servants such as lawyers and city councillors, Kig-Yar of all subspecies, merchants and ship commanders alike, and even a few wealthy Unggoy merchants wearing platinum or gold plated methane harnesses, with silk robes attached. Their presence in a Kig-Yar-run establishment was far more astonishing than the presence of humans.

As I passed the uncomfortably diverse patrons, the pit that had been in my stomach from the moment of my arrival grew to its heaviest - heavier even after having received the message from my source the previous night. How should we greet each other, we who had met and parted ways on opposite sides of a war, at the burning of my home? What should I say to him? What would he have to say to me? It seemed that he had plenty to say, judging from the fact he'd requested future meetings.

In any case, there was only one way to find out. I passed through the heavy bead curtains that served as the front door to the teahouse, their beads and flakes of amber, jade, obsidian, pearl and even what looked like forerunner material enveloping me with soft rattles as I stepped inside.

Though the interior was adorned with beautiful paintings, tapestries, mosaics, carvings of stone and wood and a whole host of other diverse customers, I focused my attention solely on the large counter of polished marble - and the solitary Ibie'shan behind it, very obviously the presiding waiter, dressed in a white and cream robe. The more saurian form of his kind was closer to Earth's long extinct dinosaurs, in the sense of being the least bird-like.

The message of invitation made it clear I was to check in with the establishment first, and ask for only one name. I got the waiter's attention in English - I knew he'd understand it.

"May I speak with Fac, please? My name is Ian Crawford."

The dinosaur-like Kig-Yar eyed me intently, and then the two larger bodyguards behind me. My contact had obviously provided him with a name to expect - but even so, he seemed somewhat shocked by the extra muscle I had brought. Still, he must have realised the matter Fac had entrusted him with was serious (and probably well-paid), since he instantly reached for a communicator.

A brief exchange of Ruuht'ka followed - during which those raptor-like eyes never left me - before the Ibie'shan put down the communicator and addressed me.

"The merchant's suite, upstairs. He's waiting for you. Would you care to have some tea prepared?"

"Var-liit, please." It was a blend and type considered most popular among those who indulged in Y'Deio teas. "Do you do it with sugar?"

The waiter nodded. His people are known to use something different to sweeten their tea - a kind of sugary sap from a specific tree native to Eayn. For my part, though, I preferred to stick with the sweet-tooth I knew.

"Would your heavies care for refreshment as well?"

My bodyguards answered in the negative - they were content with water. This teahouse apparently broadened its menu to include human drinks. I could make out a cold bar with beers and soft-drinks inside behind the counter. It really was incredible how two warring cultures could so quickly integrate.

The waiter called for an assistant to man the counter in his absence, before leading us up a set of winding stairs up to the third and top level. This part of the building seemed to be of largely of recent alien construction - the original human building was apparently a ground floor summer house. The additional levels are made from the sturdy wood and mud brick typical of Kig-Yar buildings, and lined with vines and other plants in almost every corner.

The conference rooms for visiting shipmasters and businessman were located on the second level - but my host had chosen the luxury lounge suite for our meeting. Clearly, he wanted a relaxed setting and had no intention of causing me to feel discomfort - which reassured me only slightly.

Finally, we reached the third level - a single ostentatiously decorated longue inside a single wooden and stained-glass dome on the roof of the building, surrounded by a circular, open promenade balcony tier on all sides, allowing a fresh breeze to cool the room.

By the time I had reached the top landing, the waiter was already addressing the person who could only be my contact.

The lounge included several private, booth-like rooms, their entrances covered by bead curtains. Inside one, a teapot - a cylindrical affair with an elegant spout similar to those found among the Arab cultures - was filling the private space with sweet-smelling steam, which also flowed from the painted porcelain drinking bowl clutched in the talons of its occupant. Clearly, he liked his tea served extra-hot.

It was this individual who the Ibie'shan was addressing. He was clearly T'Vaoan, covered with feathers and seated on a large velvet cushion, so large it almost resembled a chair. He sipped his tea calmly, yet he drank in the curiously duck-like manner that his kind are known for - almost lapping up the tea like a drake lapping up plant-filled pond water. He exhaled after his last sip, the breath from his nostrils and mouth almost visibly mixing with condensation from the steaming tea.

Gingerly, he returned his bowl to the silver platter tray on the low table that lay in front of him, before rising from the cushion. My bodyguards took position behind me, ready for anything. I stood ready as well.

My heart was in my mouth even before I saw his face. The reason for this was that as I saw him part the bead curtain and step into the main suite, I noticed something unusual about his left hand.

On that hand, the mid-talon was missing, leaving a rugged stump - as if the claw had been completely torn off by a terrible force. Yet what was left of the middle digit almost looked like it had been burned to the point of cauterization after the injury had been received - perhaps a harsh form of medical treatment.

That missing digit had not changed a bit since the last time I had seen it. Nor had the deep, jagged white scar that ran across both jaws on the left side of the face, extending upward and just missing the eye.

There was no mistaking which of the Kig-Yar it was now.

Trau Fac, that scarred alien leader from my childhood, now stood before me, dressed in flowing scarlet and brown robes, with a deep purple tailored waistcoat beneath. His orange eyes glimmered slightly, before he exhaled with a soft grunt. He clearly recognised me as well - he obviously knew how to remember a face.

"Greetings, Mr Ian Crawford," his voice broke the silence with a gravelly rasp. "And welcome. I appreciate your response to my invitation."

He paused, taking in the moment, as I was. But I could not force words from my mouth. He clearly recognised this, giving me a mirthless smile that formed across his long jaws.

"It has been a long time, human. We have much to talk about."

* * *

Having covered many extraordinary events that have taken place on our planet, in our arm of the galaxy, I have long accepted the existence of extraordinary coincidences - events that defy belief, that happen against all the odds that could render them impossible occurrences. Such events, if they were written as part of a work of fiction, would be dismissed as being unbelievable, beyond ridiculous and part of badly written plot on the author's part.

Yet I have seen them happen in multiple stories I have covered. The story of the Great War itself is full of unbelievable events. Many still choose not to believe them - an option made all the easier that many key events of the war remained state secrets for years after. There are probably many other secrets within ONI's locked down archives that would blow even the most open mind.

However, for such an event to happen to me - it was almost irreconcilable. For the leader of a group of Jackals and Skirmishers to spare my life, my family's lives, my neighbours lives, _human_ lives, in the midst of a genocidal war against humans was against so many odds. For that same leader to remember me, for me to establish contact with him and for us to meet again, after thirteen years - the odds against that happening were staggering.

That was undoubtedly why I had been unable to speak, even as he invited me into his private booth, showing me the cushion seat on the other side of the table. My bodyguards, at my insistence, took seats at once of the few tables outside, within visual range. My tea arrived shortly thereafter, courteously poured in a human-made teacup. As luck would have it, Fac was drinking the same tea as me - or maybe he simply made an educated guess as to what I would order. Var-liit is by far the most popular Kig-Yar tea blend, both domestically and abroad. Grown on Eayn island chains controlled by the Var clan, it has since become one of that world's most successful exports.

Clearly, I was dealing with a highly intelligent and canny individual. He knew that I would recognise him - that fact and the previous night's revelation would be the shock factor that would ensure I stayed and listened. After all, he knew I would want answers. The question now was simple: what did he want to say? What did he want to arrange with me, in this place?

It was a while before Trau Fac spoke again.

"You are clearly shocked, Mr Crawford. Confused, even."

I could only reply with a nod.

He let out a grunt. "I expected as much. My only fear was that you would be so shocked you would turn away. But it seems that I was correct that you would want to meet me in the end, to question me. You want answers. You are an investigator, yes? A seeker of facts, a recorder of events..." He hesitated, looking to be deep in thought. "What is the word...a _journalist_? Correct me if I'm wrong."

"No, you're right," I surprised myself - I could hear my voice, but it didn't feel as if I was speaking. It was almost an automatic response, like an answer-phone message. "That's my job. I'm a journalist."

Fac nodded in acknowledgement.

"I have become familiar with your writings over the years. I read the writings of your own story, as you know. What I noticed before that, though, was your open mind." He looked at me intently. "That a human would talk with those who tried to destroy him, his world, his family, his race, everything he knew. That he would consider their view of this universe as he wrote of them. Even as they viewed him as mere vermin, just years ago, he wrote their stories." He snorted with amusement. "Your people never cease to amaze me."

I considered my reply carefully. When I spoke again, I finally managed to regain my composure. I stared straight at him, at this figure from the opposite side of the war which shaped us all today - that brought our people inches within extinction. I spoke to him then, as part of the Covenant that tried to eradicate us all.

"You brought me here for a reason. As you said, I'm looking for answers." I then cut straight to the point. "Why did you let us live that day, when you stole our ship? And why were you so far away from Covenant lines? You weren't on a special mission from your commanders. You only wanted that ship. Your superiors wouldn't have cared about that. You stole it for yourselves."

He did not answer, but instead took another sip of tea. His eyes descended downward, as if recalling so many memories.

I knew I had the advantage in this conversation, now. I made use of it as I pressed my position forward.

"What were you, then? Hmm? Deserters? Did you decide to turn pirate that day? There were human soldiers who arrived later, you know. We told them about you. The UNSC would have shot you down if they'd arrived five or ten minutes earlier. It would have been easier for you to kill us..."

At that point he put down his bowl with a sharp clang.

"Yes," he replied calmly, though I could hear his voice bristling, "it would have been easy." Then he sighed. "But not as easy as you think. Not for me. Not by that point."

As he fell silent, I repeated my original question. Perhaps the only question that really mattered.

"Why did you spare us?"

Once again, those orange eyes descended into deep thought. Fac turned his head to the window of our booth, which faced outside to the promenade and the view beyond. He stared out the window for a long time, regarding days gone by. I was about to repeat myself before that gravelly voice finally broke the silence once more.

"You have many questions, Crawford. And I know you also hope for a story. I have a story that can answer all your questions." He then turned to face me again. "Every question you have - about our Covenant, the war, how I survived, how _you_ survived - the story of my life had the answers. Or most of them, I hope." He paused to sip his tea once more. "I have been wanting to tell my story for a long time. I just needed to know the right person to record it to memory. Now I have found you."

I had to take several minutes to process this. He was offering point blank to tell me the story of his war - not just how he came to hold me hostage and spare my life. I would be hearing much more than that.

I took a breath. As a journalist, this was exactly what I had been hoping for. After so many interviews with Sangheili veterans, I was finally getting the chance to interview a Kig-Yar who had fought in the bloodiest war the Covenant Empire and the UNSC had both ever been engaged in and survived. This was potentially the pinnacle of my career. Since the Kig-Yar have become the Covenant race which humanity has closest ties to - second only to the Sangheili - my readers would be curious to hear a story through their eyes.

After all, the Sangheili had been the highest echelons of the Covenant - their stories were useful, but mostly in a "top-down" narrative of history. Writing down a story from a lesser Covenant soldier, from one of the low-level client races - this would be the first part of a history of the Covenant and the war they fought from a "bottom-up" perspective.

From my own point of view as a human being, I needed to hear the story of this particular T'Vaoan Kig-Yar. Perhaps now, after thirteen years, I could have some closure. This was the opportunity of my life.

"If you want your story to be told, I will help you to do that, Fac. I can make it a book, if that is what you want."

I replied with as much confidence and certainty as I could, pushing whatever reservations I had firmly to the back of my mind. That sharp-toothed smile returned to the raptor-like jaws.

"Good...very good. I appreciate this very much, Mr Crawford. Telling my tales in full has long been a desire, even a need of mine..." his eyes fell to the table, clearly weighed down by memories. Eventually, he lifted his head again. "But I have only one request to make, as your source."

"Which is?"

"That you call me Trau. That form of address seems more natural to me, having served in the military for so long. The Sangheili only ever referred to us by our birth names and for my part, I feel more comfortable being addressed that way by long-term acquaintances, which I hope you will be. Clan politics rarely interests me the way it does for most of my race."

"That's fair enough."

"Are you comfortable with how I address you?"

I paused for only two seconds before answering. "I'll have to get to know you better before I let you call me Ian."

The Kig-Yar - Trau - snorted with amusement. "Very well." He then sipped his tea once more, before his owl-like gaze found me again. "I believe we should start at once."

I pulled out my recording tablet placing it on the table in front of my newly acquired source. He looked at it in curiosity.

"I take it that device is required."

I nodded. "It's called Scribe; and it's not just a voice recorder. Everything you say will be saved into it, processed, and assembled as text. Effectively, you write by talking. Any questions I have will be recorded too, but," I added, quick to outline my personal policy, "I won't interrupt you too much when this is recording. It's my belief that firing off questions only disrupts the narrative and gets what I want, not what _you_ want to say. I prefer to let my sources speak for themselves."

"A fair policy." He was quite sincere. "So, I won't be required to do any writing in telling you my story?"

"No, you won't," I assured, gesturing to the scribe tablet. "It saves time. Once each interview is done, I'll upload the text recorded onto my laptop, and then assemble it into coherent chapters. I'll be editing rather than outright writing, effectively."

Trau looked impressed. "You Humans have such creative minds."

I set up the Scribe into a starting mode. My finger hung over the touch-screen, ready to tap the 'start record' button. Then I hesitated, and withdrew my finger.

"Shall we decide where you'd like to start, first? All stories need a beginning."

He looked lost in thought.

"I'm still considering where I should begin." He turned to the window once more, the filtering beams of sunlight shining on his feathered head, illuminating his dark quills. In the light, I noticed that some of them were greying. "I often ask myself when I can say my life truly began. We all tell ourselves it is when we are born - but as we grow and look back, we all learn better."

He picked up his tea-bowl again, sipping it as he stared outside at the view that included blues of the sea, recalling what looked to be a long and troubled life. Obviously he was struggling to make sense of his past, just as much as I was my own. I decided to give him a push in a coherent direction.

"What would you describe as the moment where your war began? When in your life were you set on the course that lead you down that route? Which event was most significant in taking you to war?"

He turned back to me again, looking thoughtful for a moment, before finally giving a definite answer.

"When I first signed up for service in the Covenant Army. In Y'Deio."

"What lead you to that decision?"

Trau smiled once more. "That, Mr Crawford, is the right question." Once more, he returned his bowl to the tray, strength and determination returning to his voice as he spoke again. "I am ready to begin. Right now."

I reached over, pressed the green start button on the Scribe, sat back in my chair - and the story began.

 **A/N: I was hoping to get this chapter up much, much earlier, but a combination of a family holiday, illness before and after and work stood in the way. Glad I got it up!**

 **As those who read this have gathered, this story will be Kig-Yar-centric, focused on the protagonist I've introduced. He will play a much bigger role than our human journalist in the story to come. After all, these two chapters are only one big prologue.**

 **This story will be good, I hope. In my opinion, there still isn't much official Halo material that offers deep perspectives of the war from Covenant races besides the Elites, and the Kig-Yar are interesting and still largely untapped with the exception of Mortal Dictata. The idea of telling the story of the war of a Covie infantryman always appealed to me. Since there's already plenty of material with the Elites, I knew I had to write a story from a lesser perspective.**

 **In any case, I hope readers enjoy. Look out for the next chapter!**


	3. I: Chapter 3 - Sign Up

**I:** **Fodder**

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Sign Up**

 **25th May, 2533 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Ninth Age of Reclamation, 8th Solar Cycle (Covenant Calendar)**

 **Han City, T'Vao, Y'Deio System**

"Why would you want to join the Army?"

That is roughly the question you just asked me. That very same question was posed to me at the recruitment station on my homeworld, all those years ago. It was a very good question and still is, because in answering it I am able to tell you a bit more about me. The story of my life is bound to how I came to fight in the war. So if I am to properly answer your question, I must warn you - be prepared for a complicated answer.

Before I open that box of tangled threads however, I should tell you of the day I left my home to enlist.

It was a wet one - the climate of the moon of T'Vao is notorious for its harshness, swinging wildly between baking heat and raging storms. The gravity of my home is much greater than that of our motherworld Eayn, and as such the winds, lightning and rain come down much harder. That is why we T'Vaoans are not a breed of weaklings - a fact I was always reminded of from childhood onward. Our pedigree was made to be hardy, to be strong.

That day, the rain fell in great torrents in the morning. My hooded rough-leather cloak soaked up the downpour as I left my home in the village of Ream, located in the wetlands of the same name just outside of Han City. The wind howled like a thousand demons, blowing from the seas and across the land, driving the rains into an incredible spray. Having filled myself with a final breakfast before setting off, I made for the nearest tram stop.

I made a point not to look back. My family's home - an old plantation house just outside the lake and marshes that bordered Ream - had already been sold off. I had filled out all the paperwork, approved the transactions. As I left, I sealed the keys in the small safe compartment built into the wall just by the door, ready for the next owners to unlock and retrieve. A card key to do so would be provided to them by my clan's treasurer when they arrived to claim the house.

I would not be returning, for I had already burned all bridges behind me. There was no looking back, no turning back. I had made my decision.

But as I said, I will come to that later.

Han City and its surrounding settlements are serviced by a vast hover-tram network - perhaps one of the few great feats of organisation my species have been noted for. Most other Kig-Yar cities would have much more informal systems of public transport, or else just leave it to the citizens to provide their own. Han is not like most of our cities however - and that made it all the more easier for me that day.

Fortunately, I did not have to wait long in the rain before the tram arrived. When it did, I was quick to board and pay my fare for central Han. I took my place among the mixed bag of passengers - robed and waist-coated merchants, the women among them draped in fine tunics. Elderly citizens, sat on the cushioned seats, in contrast to the younger generations like myself who clung onto the brass railing and leather hand-holds, just managing to stay upright as the tram sped roughly along, clunking everyone off their feet from time to time.

Some of those young pups - not much younger or older than myself - were heading to sign up, just as I was. We were the typical group to do so - ideal raw material for an army, you might say.

Even so, there were some on the tram that day who looked even more ideal - I was quick to notice them as they boarded at a stop further into town. Hard-bitten, strapping bruisers, their feathers leathered with grease, even marred by what looked like plasma scalding. Clearly they'd been working with machinery, most likely in engine rooms. That gave away their occupation immediately, even before they started chatting away about it in obnoxiously loud voices.

They were starship crewmen, most likely working on freighters. Perhaps there were even a few pirate-privateers among them, working for the Ministry of Tranquillity. There were no shipmasters though - they nearly always had their own personal transportation, which they could always afford. They wouldn't mingle on a tram with the likes of us.

Like all of the largest cities on T'Vao, Han is built around one of the moon's great spaceports, which in turn are linked by traffic routes to the major hub asteroids such as Dal'Koth, which orbit Y'Deio in their vast belt together with my homeworld, as well as mother Eayn. As such, a good part of the population is employed in the spaceflight and shipping industry, so active spacers are a fairly common sight. In my childhood I was often in awe of them. Even here, the other passengers looked at them with respect as they boarded - my people have always prided themselves on being great space-farers before the San 'Shyuum came for us, a trait not many of those we shared our Covenant with could claim. These tough men and women were the pioneers and pillars of our civilisation, the pride and pinnacle of all Kig-Yar.

Right now, though, I only found them to be an unwelcome disturbance. They were an imposing and swaggering bunch, clearly viewing themselves a cut above the rest. Nearly all of their jabbering involved bragging about how much money they were making on their ships or thought they would make, which grated on my nerves. Most of the initially respectful passengers deferred to give them a wide berth, but I made sure I was at the opposite end of the tram.

Not that I was intimidated. That lot thought they were tough, and certainly their occupation was hazardous - but from everything I'd heard about the army and the war with the Humans, they wouldn't have lasted five minutes where I was headed.

It wasn't long before the tram started navigating the winding roads of the inner city. Finally, it stopped at my destination - the central plaza. Glad to be rid of the toughs, I stepped out.

I'd wandered this city many times throughout my life - on childhood trips, on business, on errands or just simple outings. Yet in spite of all that, the sight of the city plaza never became a dull one for me. This was especially true of the great cast iron statue in the centre, mounted upon a towering rectangular pillar hewn from granite. From the top of this pedestal, the steely eyes of the namesake of Han City look out over its vast expanse.

Han the Navigator is one of the major heroines in my people's long spacefaring history. Kig-Yar lore is filled with heroic shipmistresses, whose names live on today as royalty among my people - but she was particularly relevant to me, since she was of my own clan. More than that, she was the founder of our power and the city to which she gave her name.

Han Fac was lucky enough to be alive during the Second Era of Exploration. The first era had been after all the clans of Eayn united and eventually mastered spaceflight; this lead to expeditions from Eayn to the nearest asteroids and moons of Chu'ot, and their subsequent colonisation by early pioneers. This included the seeding of T'Vao, the birth of my kind. At this time however our space technology was still primitive. Those bold first explorers could not venture that far from the motherworld, and certainly not beyond Chu'ot's orbit.

Roughly three thousand cycles or more passed before Han emerged and the second era came. Obviously, the first settlers of T'Vao did not naturally evolve into what they are today in such a relatively short space of time. No, they selectively bred themselves to become stronger than the people of Eayn, to adapt to their harsh new world. We T'Vaoans dramatically altered our bodies in response to the conditions. My kind is the result of accepting no weak offspring, of ruthless screening. Even today, our genetics are strictly maintained. Mating with other Kig-Yar is almost universally illegal, and even where it isn't, it is severely frowned upon. Though only in some of our most reactionary clans is it still punishable by death; at the time our ancestors were first breeding, that punishment applied to all T'Vaoan clans.

At the time Han first entered history, the T'Vaoans had already been fully bred. Though our population has always been small in comparison to the others of our race, we were ready to make our mark.

It did not take long after the First Era for the clans to revert to old rivalries. New borders and fiefdoms were drawn up among the rings of Chu'ot, moons were divided and rocks claimed. My kinsmen once more took to raiding one another's territory. T'Vao was no exception – our unique breeding did not prevent conflict. The moon soon became divided, and the Fac clan went through hard times.

At this time ours was only a small clan, living among a few others in a patchwork of small settlements around those same wetlands I had left behind (one of these ancient settlements was Ream village). Furthermore, this land was under almost constant attack from off-world pirates and rival clans. Han grew up defending her village from these attacks from childhood, and quickly learned the ways of war.

By her late-teens she had became a respected leader, forming militias to defend not just her own village and clan, but also the neighbouring settlements. She proved just as much a skilled politician as a warrior, as she was one of those who helped to seal an agreement of mutual defence among the clans of the Ream wetlands. The Fac clan was the strongest among these, and in time all the other clans in this Ream'ka League were absorbed into its ranks.

However, this early union was not enough. Han and the other leaders of Ream'ka knew that they needed more funding to cement the alliance and strengthen their position in the land. So, two courses of action were simultaneously taken up.

The first was the founding of a spaceport and central settlement in a key strategic location outside the Ream wetlands. This was the settlement that grew into the metropolis which would eventually become known as Han City. The second was an expansion of trading contacts with the other T'Vaoan clans, as well as with the motherworld and other colonies, bringing in much needed profits and extra manpower from immigration. This resulted in growing riches - and an offer that would transform Han from a local hero to a legend among all of my people.

The merchant guilds of Eayn were offering a substantial prize of cash and exclusive trading rights for whoever could be first to leave Y'Deio and reach the nearest star system. Though inter-clan conflicts and piracy still raged on, attempts were being made to ease them as influential voices began to argue for a renewed union of all Kig-Yar, and with it the chance for new expansion and exploration in space. Many space-farers were already taking part in this glorious Second Era, charting more of the rings of Chu'ot and visiting nearby planets in Y'Deio.

Han herself had little experience of space travel - she was still in her late twenties - but to bring her people prosperity, she accepted the challenge for the first interstellar voyage. Recruiting skilled shipwrights and crewmembers, she used the money and resources from the new trade to construct an advanced starship, using skilled business diplomacy to obtain the latest FTL engine drives under development. Her negotiation was so good that she was even able to buy the engineers developing these first drives.

Kig-Yar slipspace drives were crude, as well as few and far between - but they did exist at that time, albeit in an experimental stage. This was the reason for the challenge set by Eayn's merchants. These drives were prone to disastrous accidents - but Han was not one to avoid risk. Indeed, to even step into that craft was an act of tremendous courage, for herself and her hand-picked crew. She christened the vessel _Endurance_ (or rather the T'Vaoan word for it) and set off on her voyage.

Against considerable technical odds, Han made the first slipspace jump ever made by Kig-Yar, a century before our incorporation into the Covenant. She succeeded in reaching the furthest planet from our sun, Muloqt. Accompanied by a small colony ship, she founded a redoubt there that would eventually become a considerable trading centre. She built it as a stop-off point for the interstellar trade route she envisioned that would run to the nearest star - her real prize.

Han then took the fateful step further. Having resupplied _Endurance_ she then made the fateful jump to Mar'eio, nearly five light years from our home system - the first interstellar voyage of our species. Once there she discovered a huge asteroid belt surrounding the perimeter of that small solar system, which contained only three planets. The crew of _Endurance_ were quick to map the ring for future colonisation - but Han's greatest discovery was on Marvat, the second planet from the sun and the only one that was habitable.

On this world of lush rainforests, dense jungles and vast grasslands in between, she discovered a primitive planet-bound race of tree-dwelling mammals - a mostly tribal civilisation divided between small village cultures and nomadic hunter-gatherers. These people called themselves the Varantani, and while Han's contacts with the nomads were hostile - three of her crew were killed in a battle with a warlike tribe - she did trade with the villagers despite communication problems.

In exchange for advanced tools, the Varantani gave her unique foods, plants and finely crafted artefacts, which she proudly showed off at her triumphant return. Those polished figurines, obsidian-tipped arrows, spears and javelins, patterned tapestries, earthenware pottery and painted rocks can still be found in museums on Eayn and T'Vao today.

The Fac clan received the promised reward, and our reputation grew. Han was granted her title of 'Navigator', which has been bestowed upon distinguished exploring shipmasters and mistresses since before our people took to space. She did not stop there, however. She also used _Endurance_ to explore and chart every nook and cranny of Y'Deio, eventually creating a comprehensive map of our system still in use today.

Rival shipmistresses also began to experiment with interstellar travel - but since Han had laid her clan's claim on Mar'eio, which was recognised by the Eayn government, they had to journey to other nearby stars. At least two such expeditions were made, but unlike the _Endurance_ expedition they found no life-bearing worlds.

Han also planned a second expedition to Mar'eio, this time with a fleet of three ships. But before she was about to do so, tragedy struck. While commanding a brand new slipspace-capable colony ship to bring new colonists and building expansions to her redoubt on Muloqt, the drive malfunctioned. The ship was sent to oblivion and Han with it - just two cycles after her triumphant voyage. Thus ended the Second Era of Exploration.

From then on, the government on Eayn banned use of slipspace until safer drives could be developed - which turned out to be never. The old sectarian mentality and conflict returned once again - any chance of another union of all Kig-Yar for scientific progress and expansion was gone. Thus we were ripe for the taking when the Sangheili and San 'Shyuum arrived the next century.

After we willingly joined the Covenant following the War of the Asteroids, the San 'Shyuum knew our existing slipspace drives to be unstable and ordered them all scrapped. They then provided safer ones of their own making for those shipmasters willing to work for the Ministry of Tranquility. All other Kig-Yar vessels would be restricted from having them, due to the constant problem of pirates.

This removed the need to spend resources developing and building our own drives, and our Shipmasters and mistresses were able to follow in Han's footsteps as interstellar travellers. In addition, the piracy that had always plagued our system was neutered and denied FTL capability. Thus, the Covenant brought us into its embrace, and the holy Prophets selflessly ensured our technological progress. Han the Navigator's dream was at last realised, thanks to our faith in the sacred promise of the Great Journey.

At least, that is the version of history I always heard. Not that I questioned it often.

* * *

 _"What happened to the Varantani?"_ _I felt compelled to ask this question. "Covenant records don't mention them. I haven't heard of any species of that name in the Outer Skein."_

 _I had that very moment checked the list of known Covenant races on my palm-comp - compiled from recovered Covenant databanks - including the newly discovered ones in the Covenant Fringe. Trau snorted mirthlessly as he returned his bowl to the table._

 _"That shouldn't surprise you. It's common knowledge why you'll never find those people Han found."_

 _Before I could reply that it wasn't common knowledge to_ me _, he spoke again._

 _"After we joined the Covenant, we agreed to share all the charts we had ever drawn up. That included those from our first interstellar voyages - especially Han's voyage. The Sangheili took the lot. They didn't waste time in trying to find Mar'eio for themselves."_

 _As he returned to sipping his tea, I began to guess at what must have happened next. I already knew from studying Covenant history that Humans were not the first species the Prophets had declared heretical and condemned to genocide._

 _"Once the Covenant Navy reached Marvat, they found that it was rich in Forerunner junk. Long story short, the Varantani didn't like the Covenant coming onto their land and digging it up. Their tribes refused to join, attacked excavation sites," He sighed. "The Sangheili commanders demanded a military campaign. The Prophets saw all the Varantani tribes as a worthless nuisance, not worth converting. So the Elites got their glorious campaign._

 _"They killed them all. All of them. Hunted down the roaming warrior groups in the rainforests and the prairies between them, bombed and burned the villages from low altitude...they never stood a chance. It was literally spears, bows and arrows against fire. I only learned that history in full after the Covenant collapsed, though I knew about it before - the Prophets' version, of course."_

 _I was left in shock, but I suppose I shouldn't have been. Any more than the human race would have been shocked at the Covenant's first glassings at the start of the war, had we known about their prior history of violence..._

 _Trau cleared his throat._

 _"But anyway, you said you would not interrupt me?"_

 _"Ah...yeah. Sorry about that."_

 _"I am also at fault. I went off an a tangent with that history lecture. Was I passing Han's statue?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"Then I digress far too much..."_

* * *

I had been taught the history of my clan, of Han's great deeds since I was a hatchling. Of course, I am not directly descended from the great shipmistress herself - our clans include many family lines. Still, such stories were always an inspiration for me - and they still are. So you will excuse me if I went off on a bit of a tangent.

Her life is summed up brilliantly by the engraving on the pedestal of Han's statue - a poem she is said to have written herself. It has since become the motto of the Fac clan.

 _A path of comfort, of simple norm,_

 _Of humble expectation, of borders tight,_

 _Of no peril, nor daring risk or storm,_

 _Of pure safety, with all things right,_

 _Of no hardship, no hard and beaten tracks;_

 _Such is not the Path of Fac._

It is a poem I learned since childhood. It's a source of inspiration that has helped me much, in my life since. But enough of this blather...

As I passed the statue, I noticed that most of the younger men from the tram had also disembarked, and were trailing behind me. My hunch that they were coming to sign up with me had proven correct. The war had entered its eighth cycle, and had since become a normal - if distant - background to life, yet still those volunteering to enlist kept pouring in.

Soon, we joined a stream of young men and women heading for the walled courtyard at the front of the city hall, where the military recruiters had set up their station. One of many imposing buildings surrounding the central plaza, the city hall naturally had a courtyard large enough to fit all of us in - and it didn't take long for a large crowd to form.

Obviously, the salary for Kig-Yar professional soldiers was a factor in the turnout - our pay was higher than that of others who fought for the Covenant. The pay was even better if you signed on with a dedicated mercenary guild ('contract soldier' being the official term) or as part of a Privateer crew, but most of those guilds demanded prior combat experience. The regular infantry salary was high enough in its own right, and served as a springboard for those looking to do full-on mercenary work in the future. It was certainly better paid compared to most jobs at home.

Still, although my people are often judged as materialistic, I have no doubt that there were some glory hunters and adventurers among those youngsters who signed on. With such a titanic war still raging on after so long, they were unlikely to miss any of it. It was for that same reason the recruiters were even more unlikely to refuse us. No one would be disappointed today.

The courtyard itself was circular, surrounded by pillars of steel and covered with a floor of finely painted tiles, creating an ornate plaza. By this point the rain had eased off into a drizzle - and the recruiters were out in force, their desks set up around the open courtyard. Most had stall covers to keep out the elements, and I suspect that even heavy rain would not have deterred them from admitting new recruits. They were dedicated people. Throughout the yard, you could hear them shouting out their marketing lines like street vendors, eager to draw us in.

"Come! Join our ranks!"

"The Covenant needs good fighters! Don't miss the war!"

"Come and fight with us in the Army! It's a good life!"

"Make your mark! Serve your people on the front!"

"Sign up lads, for a good and glorious life!"

A good life. I'd heard that about the Army before. Well, the wages were good and by all accounts we were winning the war - so it did seem true at the time. I needed only to get some front-line experience, then sign on as a full mercenary, and life would be even better. If I got to that stage I could chose whatever work or posting I wanted. Alternatively, if I didn't take that path and formally stayed in the Army long enough, I might even join the special forces - the commando or murmillo units. Their pay was said to be just as good as full mercenaries. Maybe, just maybe, I could even get ranked as a Champion one day.

That was all assuming I _survived_ , of course. One step at a time.

There were two separate groups of desks - one group on one side of the yard signed on recruits for the Navy and Ministry of Tranquility. The war demanded more of our scout ships, and more crews were needed there.

The side I was aiming for drew in much more of a crowd. The Army had by far the biggest demand for T'Vaoan manpower, and as such most of the shouts of encouragement came from there. I joined the queue - fortunately it was shortened by the fact there were five desks for the Army, so the numbers of people were managed pretty well. It didn't take long for my time to come.

The recruiting officer at the desk I was herded to was probably in his early thirties - but his eyes and demeanour made him look much older. It's a well known fact in the military that you can tell the difference between a combat veteran and a fresh recruit just by looking at them. This man had very obviously seen his fair share of war. I also immediately noticed his feathers were dyed red, as was his armour - from what I knew of the military that meant he held the rank of Major. He seemed constantly on-edge, as if expecting danger at any moment. No doubt such an instinct was the reason he had survived many campaigns to sit here now.

I didn't spend a lot of time regarding him though - he addressed me sharply the second I met his gaze.

"Name and age?"

"Trau Fac. Eighteen cycles."

This was a lie - I don't mind admitting this. It was not a massive falsehood, however - I was only seventeen. If the recruiter noticed, he paid it no mind; as I said, they were hardly going to refuse a volunteer for service at this time.

What happened next made me rethink that assumption. He did seem troubled - but not by my age. That warrior's tough shell seemed to break down as he recognised my name.

"Trau Fac...son of Mal Fac, correct?"

"Yes."

He eyed me closely, those cold gray eyes sizing me up. I could see the side of him that thought beyond his immediate duty to the Army - and I knew then that against my expectation, I was faced with someone reluctant to let me join the war.

"I fought alongside your father, you know. Do you think he'd want to see his son following in his footsteps?"

"He would not have objected to the choice I have made. He always understood."

He sighed in frustration. He then spoke in hushed tones - perhaps afraid he might face consequences for what he was about to say.

"Isn't it enough that one good Fac has already gone away to the war and never returned? Your family has already done enough. Your service has been paid."

"Not all of it."

Another exasperated sigh left his throat. To my shock, he almost seemed to be begging me not to sign up.

"Haven't you had any other job offers? There's plenty out there for the likes of you. Why would you want to join the Army?"

Then, as now, I was faced with that fateful question. In answering it, I should explain the conversation that lead to it.

* * *

My Father was a full-time professional soldier. He was not just any average infantryman - he was part of a commando unit for much of his military career. Much of his service before the war involved tracking down pirates in the home system, working alongside the local militia. He was in the middle of this positing when the extraordinary double announcement came that three new Hierarchs had risen to the throne in _High Charity_ and contact with a new, hostile species had been made.

I was still a child then. Father was the closest of my two parents; my mother was shipmistress of a missionary vessel and also lent her services to the Navy, thus she was not around much. That isn't to say I didn't relish every occasion that she came home - but my father was a more constant presence due to his posting at the time. The only relative who was always present was my grandmother - it was from her that I heard the stories of our history, from Han the Navigator to the ancient mariners of the great sea of Eayn. She was the closest family figure I had.

Whenever father came home from leave, I was always beaming with joy. In the mornings and throughout the days would take me on hunting trips in the wetlands, where we would use antique bolt-rifles to bring down the net-bills that always flew around the marshes. When you caught one and roasted it, the meat made for a true delicacy.

"Life has been taken for this meat, my son" he would say. "Whenever you take a life, you must be prepared for the consequences. It is not something to be taken lightly."

In the evenings, he would tell me stories of his life in the military - of clashing with pirates, of fighting against Unggoy or Heretic uprisings and fighting alongside the mighty Sangheili. When the war came I was nine cycles of age, and still shedding the last of my down. It was after this point that my father was given much less leave, and like so many others was mobilised to fight. My mother was subject to the same demands - I never saw her again after the war began.

My father only came home once, five cycles after the Ninth Age of Reclamation was proclaimed - and when I saw him, I could see that he had changed. He still embraced his son lovingly - but when he did so I could feel that something was not right. He would not go out to the wetlands when I asked, instead content to sit on the porch almost motionless for hours on end. Here he would watch the sunset while sipping scalding hot tea.

He hardly ever spoke. When I first childishly asked what it was like, fighting against those evil creatures that we now knew to be called Humans, he simply frowned and turned away.

It was only once, on one of the evenings on the porch, that he finally shared something of the war with me while I was sat down beside him.

"This is not just any other war, Trau. It is greater than any war our Covenant has fought before."

"Greater than the War of the Asteroids?"

My people's defence of our home when the Sangheili first arrived to subjugate us had passed into legend. The history books always sold our resistance as what enabled the Kig-Yar to have the autonomy and paid status in the Covenant that we possessed, even if it was a relatively low position. In that conflict, we had fought for our survival and won. That was something to be proud of. Every Kig-Yar chick was taught that it was the most epic war in history.

"Much greater," he snorted with cynicism. "That war only involved this system. The Humans are much more widespread than we first realised. We find more of their worlds with each cycle. This war could go on for many more."

I was stunned. This campaign had gone on for five long cycles already - that was already a long time, as wars go. It was hard to imagine a war lasting even longer. The Great Unggoy Rebellion, the largest full-scale conflict in recent history, had only gone on for one cycle before the glassing of Balaho. The subjugation of the Jiralhanae, in which my father had fought in his late-teens, had lasted even less than that. These new enemies had obviously shaken him.

"They are just as dangerous as the Prophets have said, then?"

"That they are," my father agreed, "but I wouldn't believe everything the Prophets say in their broadcasts. They promised us a quick victory when this age began. They still promise it now. They haven't prepared the peoples of our Covenant for the fact that the Humans are fighting for their survival, just as we once did." He sipped his tea again. "They will never surrender."

Now my shock was even greater.

"Are you saying...that we could lose this war?" Such a revelation would be devastating. Our people always liked to believe we were not completely under the Prophets' sway - yet from childhood on I had been taught that the Covenant was all-powerful. Nothing could withstand our mighty fleets, our power to burn whole worlds. Our armies, diverse and drawn from many warring peoples united in one purpose, had never been beaten. We had conquered almost all of this arm of the galaxy, along with so many races and worlds. Our might was invincible, unstoppable.

To learn now that there was an enemy that dared to think it could defeat the Covenant, that was perhaps its virtual equal in power and strength; that would shatter everything I ever thought I knew about this universe I lived in.

To my relief, he shook his head.

"No. Not everything the Prophets and Sangheili have been saying should be doubted. It is true that the Human Navy cannot match ours. They have no shields, their ships are much slower...I have seen them burned away by our vessels like paper. We will keep burning their worlds with them, until we reach their homeworld...but as to how that long that will be...how many lives will be lost...how much more will be lost..."

He fell silent. I let him have a moment as he returned to his steaming drink. I struggled to understand the full meaning of his last words - _how much more will be lost_. Surely lives were the greatest losses in war?

"There is much to fighting to come then," I offered. Perhaps I would get my chance, after all. I had talked to my father about signing up before - he hadn't objected, but he had asked me to look at alternatives. But I had no desire to become a low-paid crewman working for some haughty shipmistress, which was the average job on offer for most young male Kig-Yar. A part of me wanted to follow my father.

"There is. But do not think of it as a game of glory." After that, his reticence returned. We silently watched the sunset together, only talking occasionally - about the battles he'd fought, about my future, about life in general.

He was called back to action the next morning. A cycle later came the news that he had always told me was a possibility - but that I naively never thought would come.

One of his comrades brought the news to me - in the form of his commando helmet, with a clean hole through which the human marksman's bullet had passed into his skull. I knew that he would have died instantly. The green armoured soldier assured me it was so - he had been there with my father on the Human world of Harvest - but it was no consolation. As my father's ashes were presented to my grandmother and I - what remained of our family - I broke down and wept. We laid his urn to rest on a hill near the wetlands, not far from our home.

In the following two cycles, more losses followed. My mother was pronounced missing. Whether that meant she had been killed or had simply left the fold and turned to piracy, we did not know. All we knew was that while on a long-range reconnaissance mission contact had been lost with her ship. I felt sorrow, but also anger - she had seldom been a part of my life, and before she left this world forever she could have at least found some time to see her son. But I knew I could not change anything - she was gone, and that was that.

My grandmother was the last to leave me. Distraught by the disappearance of her daughter and by the death of her son-in-law, she seldom spoke afterward. I found myself, for the fast time in my life, being primarily in charge of my own destiny. You might say I was forced to grow up early. My grandmother passed away peacefully, just over a month before I signed up. Thus, the house passed to me.

Two days later, I received a visit from the head of our clan, Chur'R-Fac. Her first name was adopted, and denoted her inherited title as matriarch of the Fac clan, a naming practice dating back to Eayn's pre-spacefaring past. Her line directly descended from that of Han the Navigator - and as such it claimed leadership as the ruling line over our clan and the territory it still controlled. This still included all of Han City and the land surrounding it, which made her very powerful. Though Fac was a young clan by our people's standards, her title demanded respect from all Kig-Yar.

Like most clan matriarchs dating back to antiquity, she was an accomplished shipmistress. And like most of today's matriarchs, she had a fine record of service in the Covenant Navy. However, she was also wealthy from the mercantile shipping trade, and controlled most of the guilds on T'Vao along with a large slice of the moon's merchant fleet. She also owned several other ports-of-call in the Chu'ot belt. When she visited, with her submissive menservants trailing behind, I knew that she was looking for new labour.

"You have my full and deep consolations for your loss," she assured me with a clearly practiced tone, while one of her retainers poured me a tea bowl. "Many have suffered such losses lately, but I understand that you are in a difficult position right now. I want to assure you that I can help you."

The matriarch's duty was to oversee the whole clan, to pay attention to any of our troubles and try to rectify them. It hadn't taken long for the passing of a prominent shipmistress and her soldier husband to become known to the whole clan. Chur'R-Fac's motivations for this visit were not restricted to her civil duties, however - as I soon found out.

She gave me a list of possible jobs that she had on offer on the ships she owned - most of them menial, all of them low-paid. But, she said, they had the potential for advancement - especially if I joined the crew of her own vessel, working for the Ministry of Tranquility.

I doubted that somehow. The men of my race still seldom made shipmaster; most shipmistresses were happy to keep us males on as underlings, on their ships and under their command for a long time. After all, why let a crew full of prospective mates out of your sight by letting them leave and advance in rank? It was so much easier for them to keep male underlings around to hen-peck. Even now, I could see the lustful, seductive look in the matriarch's eyes as she told me about a vacancy on her ship, her ruff of head feathers flexing in display.

Some men might have fallen for flirtation from a wealthy woman, but I knew I wanted nothing to do with that. Chances are she would find a better, older mate and discard me like a forgotten toy. I knew it often happened.

I didn't tell that to Chur'R-Fac, of course. Instead, I simply told the matriarch I was not interested in menial work. The military would provide greater prospects, dangerous as it was right now.

Disappointment clouded her eyes. She clearly wanted cheap labour, and a male who had lost his family should have been an easy source in her eyes.

"Don't throw your life away. I knew your mother. She was a fine shipmistress, among the finest of us all. She would want you to take up my offer."

Yes, of course she would. I would know, given how little my mother visited me. The matriarch would know all about that too, of course.

"I barely knew her. And now she's gone."

"It's something you have to accept. Have you ever considered that she might have been dissatisfied with your life here? It's possible she may have done the quite natural thing and chosen a new mate - one who would help her to hatch women."

I was furious now. The suggestion that my mother was troubled that she only had one male chick - the fact that it might be true only added to my anger. I wouldn't be lectured or dictated to by this pompous woman.

"Well, she won't be worrying about me, then. I'm signing up."

The matriarch now dropped all pretence of civility as she moved to storm out, together with her retainers, who scurried out of the door ahead of her.

"Very well. Go and get yourself killed, just like that useless mate of a father! If you worked for me you might have made up for him. Now I know this bloodline he helped start is clearly wasted. No wonder she left!"

She slammed the door behind her. I was left seething. There was clearly nothing for me here now - I knew that when I left that house and sold it. I certainly couldn't turn back, and I certainly wasn't going to go grovelling to Chur'R-Fac with an apology and a job application. Given the view she clearly held of my father and I, I'd be lucky if she'd still make me a crewman of one of her waste barges.

So I had no regrets that day I sold the house, nor when I left it for the last time the day I left for Han City.

* * *

So, now you know the answer. I wanted to join the army simply because I didn't see myself with any prospects in my current situation. I wanted out of here - joining the military was a springboard to potentially greater things. I could join the mercenary guilds on Eayn, maybe even on High Charity if I got really lucky. I was taking a great risk, of course - even the official broadcasts couldn't hide the danger of the war. My last conversation with my father gave me a small taste of the reality.

Yet the risk seemed worth the rewards - it seemed the most attractive option at the time. It certainly seemed better than becoming another low-paid young man slaving under someone like Chur'R-Fac. She represented everything I wanted to avoid in my future, as far as I was concerned. The military ignored gender, ignored clans and bloodlines with all the differences and discriminations they produced. It was the most equal environment for Kig-Yar. That was how it was sold, anyway.

Perhaps beyond the desire to improve my immediate prospects, I did have a desire to follow my father - though that was probably the only non-material motive. I wish to assure you that I was not choosing to serve out of any desire for vengeance, or to satisfy his honour. It might be tempting for the reader to think that was so, but my father told me that those who went into battle with such feelings were usually the first to fall. A desire for revenge or satisfaction leads to rash judgement and unstable minds - such people are not survivors. I wanted to be a survivor. I couldn't reverse my father's death by seeking retribution.

Nor did I have any overwhelming thirst for glory - my father was also dismissive of such notions, and he did his best to pass that onto me. Glory and honour were child's words to him. Those who went to war with those words in their minds ended up dead very quickly. _Leave that nonsense to the four-jaws_ , father often said. The Sangheili went into battle with such ideas and were shot down by the dozen. A good soldier, he said, should only be concerned with the fact that he has a job to do.

There was also another small motivation in the back of my mind, in the dark corners that one does not voice. This war had taken him from me, and since that day two cycles ago I had wanted to know whether this war was worth his death. Saying that it was not was a sure way to an accusation of heresy and terrible punishment - but I wanted to know for sure. I knew my father had been fighting for our Covenant; "they gave their lives for our Covenant and the Journey on which they will join us all", the Prophets would always say in their holo-broadcasted sermons. But was this a war the Covenant needed to fight?

There was only one way to know for myself. It was not the sole or even most important reason why I joined the blessed Army of the Covenant, but it was there in my mind. I wanted to know what killed my father on the inside, as I saw the last time he returned - before it killed him altogether.

I would not be deterred.

"I want to join because there's nothing else left." It was as good a response as I could give.

The Major sighed behind his desk, before handing me the notepad. I pushed the digital pen to the screen and eagerly signed.

"One more thing," he grunted. "Don't worry about your age. The age of enrolment has already been lowered to seventeen. This war isn't ending any time soon."

I hadn't heard that news, but it made things easier for me, I suppose. I handed him back the pad, and then the T'Voan minors present herded all of us who had already signed to the rear courtyard.

The city hall was essentially a huge dome of marble and wood - the courtyard where I signed was located at the front entrance - the larger rear courtyard was located on the other side of the great dome. As we were herded inside, I could see the ornate interior of the dome. It pays clear homage to our spacefaring history. The whole inside of the dome is painted with a full vista of stars, planets, galaxies and even a bright streaming comet. In the centre of this vista, at the top of the dome, the symbol of the Fac Clan looks down on all below; a set of dividers and an ancient astrolabe branded with the glyph for "Fac". The interior of clan's main meeting place always takes my breath away.

But we didn't have much time to stop and gaze in awe, as the warriors ushering us forward ordered us to keep moving. Soon, we came to the rear courtyard - like its front counterpart surrounded by steel pillars and floored with fine tiles, but square in shape and much larger. Large enough to fit the three Type-52 dropships waiting for us.

The Phantoms were lined up in a row, on the ground and with their engines running. The hum of their anti-grav units filled the air, adding to our collective anticipation. The soldiers wasted no time in herding us on board. I took my place aboard the central craft in the row.

One we were all aboard, the pilot sealed the troop bay, though I still got a view out of the nearest porthole. The engines engaged with a sharp whine and the courtyard grew smaller and smaller through the porthole, along with the rest of Han City.

Then, with a sharp turn that sent all our stomachs lurching, the Phantom turned away from the city. The feeling of vertigo increased as the dropship climbed higher, through the wisps of clouds, before all trace of the atmosphere completely left the view through my porthole. Soon enough, the view was dominated by the black of space above, and the brilliant view of T'Vao's storm-wracked seas and continents below.

We were being taken to our training ground on Eayn, where we would go through basic training before being officially assigned to a legion in the Covenant Army.

There was no turning back now.

 **A/N: I know people may start saying T'Vao is an asteroid, not a moon - but having read Mortal Dictata and the reasons for the Skirmisher's appearance, I find it more likely to be the latter. They evolved that way because the gravity is higher on T'Vao that it is on Eayn, something that would not be possible on a smaller asteroid. Also, this is due to atmospheric conditions; asteroids have no atmosphere. Furthermore, Mortal Dictata describes atmospheric conditions. This lead me to conclude that T'Vao is a larger moon of Chu'ot, rather than just another asteroid. Feel free to dispute that, but I could only imagine it as a moon.**

 **Anyway, keep an eye out for Chapter 4!**


	4. I:Chapter 4 - Welcome to the Motherworld

**Chapter Four: Welcome to the Motherworld**

 **25th May, 2533 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Ninth Age of Reclamation, 8th Solar Cycle (Covenant Calendar)**

 **Eayn, Y'Deio System**

The troop bay was almost completely silent as our phantom sped through the vacuum. There were about two dozen of us recruits onboard, but only an occasional burst of hushed conversation took place - or it at least it sounded hushed, as my hearing was still affected from the high-altitude departure from T'Vao.

Generally though, everyone remained reserved, dwelling in their inner thoughts. I guess the fact that we had all signed up early in the morning left the majority of us lacking any mood for conversation. Even now, I could see some of my fellow recruits yawning and fighting back the urge to sleep.

They'd better have been fighting it back - I doubted that whatever training camp we were headed to would respond well to recruits taking a nap during daytime. Good thing I had gotten an early night.

Everyone however had the same silent sense of anticipation. You could see it in the occasional nervous twitch, the fidgeting of hands and talons, the ruffling of feathers. None of us had any idea what to expect - all we knew was that we were now on a path from which we could not turn back.

 _A path that could lead to an early grave_...

I immediately banished that thought with full force from my mind. Thoughts like that could lead to failures in my training. Even if it turned out to be true, there was nothing I could do to stop myself being killed in my first battle. "It happens", my father would say whenever he brought up a comrade being killed in the battles he'd fought, or when he discussed the subject of death in war in general. Best not to dwell on it.

Instead, I distracted myself by looking around at my fellow recruits. The troop bay of a Type-52 is quite spacious, so we all managed fit in comfortably. Myself and many others were stood up an arrayed along the bulkhead, while others found seating positions along the centre of the bay. All around us, those same enlisted soldiers who had herded us aboard kept watch. I could see that they even had sidearms clipped to their blue-grey armour, though I doubted they'd have to deal with any serious desertion here.

Though the vast majority of us came from the same area - Han City and the settlements surrounding it - nearly all of us were strangers. The few people I could see making conversation were also probably the few who had known each other before signing up. The recruitment station we had come from covered quite a broad area, after all.

Still, though we were strangers to one another now, I knew we would end up getting to know each other very well in the barracks we were destined to share. I thought I might as well try to remember everyone's faces now. They would be my brothers - they _were_ my brothers _now_ , since I was officially enlisted in the military at this point.

"What are you looking at, titch?!"

I instantly reacted and swivelled my head to face the speaker. He was a tall, broad, muscled specimen in his early twenties. Judging from his accent, along with the marks and stains on his civilian tunic, he came from one of the poorer agricultural outlands around Han. These included the plantations which grew high-value cash crop, which had been a staple of Fac's trading wealth since the time of Han the Navigator. My home in Ream had been one of such place, though the plantation it had presided other failed decades before my family purchased the property.

The workers on these plantations, especially the experienced foremen, were hard types - slaving away even under the baking sun and ferocious winds. This character was clearly one of them - and he obviously wasn't impressed by a skinny, middle-class kid like me looking around, meeting his eyes.

But I wouldn't be intimidated so easily.

"Just thought I'd start to get to know everyone," I said smilingly, keeping my cool as best I can. "We'll be living in a glorified prison together for the rest of our lives, anyway."

He growled.

"Funny, hatchling. That means I get to make your life a living hell if you end up near me. Since when do runts like you end up with the likes of us?"

"Funny; have you not heard the news? They lowered the age - the blessed and divine Hierarchs let me join, and you don't want to disagree with them. And who knows? We may well end up sharing bunks."

The young man snorted.

"How old are you, chick?"

"I know, you find out."

He laughed in mock amusement and was about to make an advance on me, when one of the overseeing soldiers stepped in, gesturing with his Type-25 plasma pistol for us to break it up.

"Knock it off!" the soldier barked. "You've signed up to fight Humans - save it for them. You don't want the campmaster to catch you squabbling."

The tough backed down and relented after that. The collective reticence returned, and I returned to looking around.

Needless to say, every single one of my fellow recruits were T'Vaoan, as were the soldiers who supervised us. I knew that the pilots of the phantoms were Ruuhtian - I could hear their distinctive accents as our pilot could be heard from the cockpit chatting with his comrades over the comms. They were most likely hired out to bring us to Eayn. I knew their kind wouldn't be training with us and from what I had heard recently, they wouldn't be assigned to fight lance and file with us either.

In the earlier years of the war and before, the varied peoples of the Chu'ot belt had fought together in mixed units under direct Sangheili command, as part of the regular rank and file of the integrated legions. Ruuhtians and T'Vaoans did have some units to themselves at the beginning, but my father had told me that integrated lances and even files containing all of our kinds were more common, especially in the more diverse legions. Our peoples also fought in such units alongside Unggoy - which according to my father was a constant source of trouble.

This all changed three cycles or so before I enlisted. The High Council had passed a series of reforms to the Covenant military, made decrees by the Hierarchs, in light of the increased challenges the war with the Humans presented. It was clear that the pre-war military was not institutionally equipped to fight a war on this scale, so many changes were made after this age began.

One such reform demanded reorganisation for Kig-Yar troops assigned to the legions - that we T'Vaoans be placed in exclusive units permitting no others. These units would be autonomous within a legion, separate from the regular files and lances that were officered by Sangheili. In turn, our Champions and Majors would be given greater authority. This way, Covenant Army legions would have all-T'Vaoan contingents as concentrated heavy infantry. Other Kig-Yar would remain in the regular rank and file, but would be reserved exclusively for recon and light infantry elements.

Since my people have always prided themselves above the others of our species, we welcomed the reforms. It was a sign that the Prophets recognised our value as soldiers. Perhaps, once the war was over, our overall position within the Covenant might be improved as a reward; I remember respected leaders of our clans suggesting this at the time. Things might get better only for T'Vaoans, at least - but as our proud clan statesmen often said, we were above all others born of Chu'ot.

It may have been for similar reasons that not all Sangheili agreed to the T'Vaoan Reformation, as the motion was known. There were forward-thinking field masters who agreed; from what I had heard, Human ground defences had often proven surprisingly formidable, so it made sense to have more shock troops available to storm them. Those commanders who had fought the Humans on many occasions already certainly thought this way. More conservative Sangheili - especially the councillors - were strongly opposed.

As a result, there had been considerable resistance before all-T'Vaoan contingents were approved. Even now, there were rumoured to be a few Sangheili commanders who procrastinated or even plain ignored the instruction altogether. For my race to have devoted heavy infantry units in an assault role was taken as a sign that the Prophets wanted others to usurp what the Sangheili saw as their exclusive preserve. In other words we would be sharing their position as the spearhead of any Covenant assault; thus stealing that honour which, being Sangheili, they saw as all rightfully theirs.

My father had mentioned all this to me, during our last conversation before his death. It was typical of the Sangheili to try their best to make sure no others could come close to rivalling them, on the battlefield or in politics. Their opposition certainly increased our resentment towards them. Still, the word of the Hierarchs was not to be questioned - the T'Vaoan Reformation was made decree with their blessing.

This was taken as a victory for all Kig-Yar. My father certainly saw it as such, as did our clan leaders. It was not only T'Vaoans who benefited from the new arrangement - the others of our kin were put into lighter roles that better suited them, where they could make full use of their natural abilities. Whether it lead to a decrease in casualties - I would have to get to the front myself to see if the reforms had actually saved lives.

Even if they had not, there was nothing I could do. The opinions of a lowly Kig-Yar would never affect the decisions of the High Council, certainly not those of the High Prophets. I'd never gone to the Ministry of Concert offices on T'Vao with any complaint in my life, because I knew that it would be tossed onto the pile of millions of others and forgotten. Worse still, a bold complaint could get me into serious trouble. Best to keep my mind off matters over which I had no control - especially those on dangerous ground.

Anyway, the new reforms applied to our training regimen as well; from now on T'Vaoan soldiers would be trained separately from the rest of our people's soldiers, and by fellow T'Vaoans only. Before the reforms we had also trained together. Now, we had our own separate training facilities on Eayn, each commanded by a veteran Champion. It was to one such facility that we were headed. Those Ruuhtian pilots would be the only other Kig-Yar breeds we would be seeing in quite a while.

I turned back to the porthole I was stood beside, and noticed that the blue-green orb of mother Eayn was already in sight. The Type-52 Troop Carrier is an impressive craft, both in speed and capability. It didn't take long for us to reach our destination - perhaps no more than an hour.

It certainly wasn't long before we felt the turbulence of re-entry, as our phantoms ploughed into a new atmosphere. Flames licked past the porthole for a short period - but the troop bay of a Type-52 is fitted with inertial anti-gravity dampening fields. This considerably reduces vibration for passengers inside, so it wasn't like we were wildly shaken about or thrown off our feet. At most, the feeling was no more than a minor shudder or shake. We had good pilots, too - they knew how to properly enter an atmosphere.

Having entered the atmosphere, the flames of re-entry passed. Once more, the great mountains of cloud formations filled the view, obscuring the porthole with mist as we flew through them. The clouds were soon replaced by a landmass - the clear shape of a coastline battered by the Great Ocean of Eayn.

I wasn't able to take in much of it, however. Within a second I was jolted from the porthole by a sharp chime, followed by a blunt, gravelly voice; _"Attention all recruits!"_

It quickly occurred to me that the voice was on the phantom's internal speakers - and that it was clearly the Major in command of the lance of soldiers that had marched us onto this dropship, who were now monitoring us. He was addressing us from the cockpit and expected our undivided attention. I turned my eyes forward.

 _"We are now approaching the Vara Training Grounds of Ha'chut peninsular, on the north coast of Ah'lomet. We will arrive shortly - prepare to disembark. Once you disembark you will immediately form up as instructed. That is all."_

Another chime followed, and the channel was cut. The man's tone had been very direct - we had just been issued with our first orders in the military. Best prepare myself for more of it - a life in the military would be virtually nothing but orders.

I kept my eyes forward after that. I didn't need to gather anything up to prepare to disembark - I brought only the clothes I wore. The instructions that came with the recruitment brochures specifically told us that none of our own possessions would be required, that we were to bring nothing along. The military would provide everything we needed.

I didn't see the peninsular to which we were headed appear in the porthole, nor any of the landscape around our training grounds, nor the grounds themselves on our descent. I kept facing forward, ready to get off this ship. Our superiors - yes, they were _our_ superiors now - would not react well if we weren't ready to disembark. I hoped to make a good first impression.

I'm sure nearly all the others were trying to do the same as well - but the strain of getting up early in the morning with only a few hours of sleep hampered them. Most of us looked dreary eyed, a few were even yawning. Even I, who had gone to bed early before this day began, felt some level of tiredness - the feeling one always gets from being awake at early hours. I noticed that the burly youth who I had briefly sparred with was on the verge of shutting his eyes - his attitude was most likely due to fatigue, or boredom, or both.

We all felt a distinct change in the phantom's movement is it pulled into a hover, before slowly lowering itself down to the ground. A few moments passed before, with a mechanical whir and a hiss of compressed atmosphere, the portside doors opened. This was immediately followed by blinding rays of sunlight that poured into the troop bay, replacing the cool darkness of spaceflight with the searing heat of the day in an instant.

It was certainly a shock for us young recruits, especially since we had left a city in the midst of a rainstorm. We turned to face the light, shielding our eyes. However, it did not prepare us for what would follow.

When that same Major in charge of the overseeing lance - eight soldiers in total, not counting himself - stormed out of the phantom's cockpit, he made sure we all got the shock of our lives.

" _Get your sorry hides out of here!_ " He screamed louder than anyone I'd ever heard in my life. " _Didn't I tell you to be ready?!_ Get your worthless, useless corpses off this ship in five seconds - anyone left behind cleans the latrines for a week! _Out! Out! MOVE IT!_ "

I immediately got myself moving, as did every other recruit with a brain in his head. The other soldiers onboard spurred us on as we piled out of the dropship, eager not to get our hands smothered with the barracks' excrement.

We hit the ground - mostly sandy, easily kicked up. Already, clouds and devils of dust were being thrown up by the phantom engines, and by the feet of dozens of recruits as they disembarked. The dust stung my eyes as I struggled to take in the scene around me.

We were in a vast, rectangular shaped training ground. Like the courtyard we had taken off from on T'Vao, it was walled with pillars, this time made of bronze. Clearly this was a much older structure, with the attached barracks built in the style of the ancient seafarers of the motherworld. They were long barrack buildings of mud-brick and daub, with wooden frames and tiled roofs, stretching on the other side of each of the two longest lines of pillars in the rectangle. At each side of the wall of pillars there was an entrance, each marked by a great stone arch.

The sand which we were stood on had obviously been artificially laid down, forming a perfect yellow carpet of the stuff across the whole grounds. It was kicked up even more as I saw the two other phantoms that had taken off from Han with us land on either side of our craft. Within seconds, the recruits aboard those dropships piled out too.

In the middle of the training ground stood a large copper obelisk. Four arrows were welded to its peak, one on each side. In the moment I had to look at them, I realised that they were points of a compass - iron ancient runes for North, South, East and West stood out in the middle of each arrow.

I didn't have much time to take in all this scenery, however. Another Major quick-stepped towards us as we got off the phantom. As he got closer, the more familiar his features became. To my shock, I realised that it was the same Major who had approved my enlistment back in Han - the same man who had tried to talk me out of signing up. He must have flown in ahead of us - I did remember hearing another phantom taking off ahead of the three we had flown in on, but had thought nothing of it at the time.

I gulped. This was bad news, especially if I was assigned to him during training. That would mean I would likely become a disproportionate focus of his personal attention. He would push me harder than the others, in order to prove that I truly meant to join the army as I had told him. As my father once told me when I had first discussed with him about entering the military, during training it was never, ever a good thing to become the subject of your instructor's personal attention.

If there was any mutual recognition on the Major's part right now, however, he did not show it. He had a long, blunt looking staff in his right hand - its purpose was very clear to me. It was made of wood from the bu-vao tree, known for its branches which are hollow, yet straight and almost rock-hard. The ideal material for beating recruits, in other words. Clearly, he had travelled to Eayn ahead of the phantoms that had brought us here, and was now fully in the mindset to reshape our lives forever.

" _Form up!"_ He bellowed. " _Three rows of eight! Come on!_ "

We all did our best to obey - I think I was one of the first to get into formation - but inevitably there were those who were too slow. One recruit stumbled around, as if still half asleep, and drifted out of the three rows of the two-dozen of us from this phantom.

The Major came down on him with a vengeance. He dashed towards the wayward recruit, swung his staff and smashed it into the young man's stomach. The drifter doubled over, clutching his ribs as the Major screamed into his face.

" _Did you have a_ _problem hearing!?_ I said get into the rows! Sleep time is over! Do you understand now? _Speak!_ "

The man gave a few groans, before the Major rounded on him again.

" _I SAID SPEAK!"_

"Yes, I understand, Major!"

"On your feet then! _MOVE!_ "

The drowsy recruit - well, he wasn't so drowsy _now_ , I will grant you - quickly got to his feet and rejoined the last row at the back. All of us were upright and attentive now. The lesson was clear from that little demonstration; follow instructions and obey orders, or it will be the worse for you. I certainly didn't want that stave crashing on my hapless form.

The other two groups had by now departed from their own phantoms, and in front of each of them an instructor was also present with a bu'vao staff, forcing them into three rows each. Soon, we were all formed up and facing the western side of the training ground as indicated by the central obelisk. Within a few seconds of us all getting into formation, the phantoms fired up their engines once more an departed. They left huge clouds of dust - almost a small sandstorm - that filled all of our part of the ground as they took off. Our eyes stung, and some of us coughed - though thank Chu'ot, the Major did not bring his wrath down on us for that.

As the dust passed, a clear view of the training ground returned - along with the sudden appearance of a new figure. Clad in gold armour, he stood tall in front of us, hands behind his back and regarding his new recruits with steely eyes.

I examined this new man more closely. The gold armour could only mean one thing - he was a Champion, the highest rank that any of our species could obtain. He had chosen to forgo his helmet however - he kept his head bare when addressing us. He was older than my father had been before his death - perhaps in his fifties, maybe even early sixties. His most striking and discernible feature, however, was a nasty set of burn-marks down the left side of his head and left arm - as if that side of his whole body had been set on fire. While many of his feathers on that side had grown back since whatever terrible event that had caused those burns, others still looked permanently charred, crumpled and blackened.

I made sure not to stare too much - that would likely not sit well with him or any of his Majors. Yet even with these terrible injuries his eyes shone with the gleam of charisma and authority, the kind that said clearly that he was a leader of men. I could feel this in his voice too - commanding and clipped - as he addressed us for the first time.

"Greetings recruits," he began, getting our undivided attention instantly. Clearly, no matter who you were or how you felt at the time, when this man spoke everybody listened. "I am Xen Var, Champion of the Vara Training Grounds. First of all, I must bid you all welcome. Second of all, I must lay down the hard truths. Your time here _will_ be hard. You _will all_ be tested. You _will all_ suffer. You _will all_ be pushed to the limits of your endurance, your capabilities. This is not a pleasure resort, none of you should have deluded yourselves into thinking so before coming here."

He paced back and forth in front of us now and then throughout the whole time he delivered his welcome speech, hands always behind his back, our eyes following him all the while.

"But know this, and remember it always - you all _chose_ to be here. You are not conscripts. There are no victims among this group here. Each and every one of you wanted to be here. _You_ , and _you_ alone, made that decision. We Kig-Yar are not pressed into service in the army, like the miserable batches of whimpering Unggoy who fill the ranks day after day. And unlike them, we have the privilege of being trained here and elsewhere before we leave this system to serve our Covenant. I will guarantee that you will be grateful for your time here, that you will thank us and regard yourselves as lucky to have been here in years to come.

"And when you all become soldiers - and we will make certain that is so - we will be proud to call you as such. These grounds are the training grounds of our ancestors. Here is where the gladiators of old trained, to hone their skills for the challenges that lay ahead of them in the arena every day of their lives. So too shall you be prepared for the challenges that lie ahead for you in the army. And as they emerged from these grounds as warriors, so shall you."

As he paused for effect, I realised quickly that it should have been obvious from the beginning what these grounds had once been. The buildings clearly dated back to the Seafaring Era, long before we mastered spaceflight. Also, our training grounds on the Ha'chut peninsular were close to the sea. No doubt one of the great coastal towns of old was nearby. Such places were almost certain to host a gladiator arena in those times.

I had not visited our motherworld before - this was the first time. Eayn held so much history as the cradle of our people. I wondered for a moment If I would get to see any of it beyond this compound, which clearly had a rich past in its own right. But I didn't have much time to think on the history of this place, as Xen Var's clipped tones echoed across the grounds once more.

"Until then, I can only wish you good luck. You will only have our respect when your training is complete. Once again, welcome to the Motherworld."

He then gave a nod to his Majors, and immediately the one in front of my phantom group began speaking, together with the other two, each giving the same message to each group simultaneously.

"Since there are seventy-two of you all in total, you will be sorted into six training lances of twelve. Your names will be called out for each lance, and you shall form up into that lance as ordered! To begin," He pulled out a datapad from his armour, which no doubt had all our names - "the following are assigned to First Training Lance..."

The names were called out, and the 1st Training Lance eventually took their places in front of the rest of us. They were promptly assigned a Major, who marched them to the Northern section of West Barracks, the directions being indicated by the Obelisk in the centre. The process was repeated for the 2nd Lance, and the 3rd. Throughout the whole time, my name was not called out. I was becoming impatient, waiting out here for so long in the dusty heat while others settled down into their bunks. I began to wonder if the barracks had a cooling system, out here...

I was so caught up in my own thoughts that the Major's words as he called out the members of 4th Lance became blurred. My mind began to leave its body, as if yearning to be somewhere cooler, wetter, breezier - just like old home...

" _Fac, Trau!_ Damn it, do you have a hearing problem!?"

 _Oh damn me..._

"No Major!"

"Then why did I have to call your name three times? Or is it that you don't know your own name? Well, do you know your own worthless name?"

"Yes Major!"

"Then join the others - you're the last to be called! Let us hope that's not all you're last in!"

I was cursing as I quickly shifted my hide and joined my training lance - the 4th Lance. How could I drift into my thoughts at a time like this? My father would have given me a good hiding if he could see me now. At least the Major hadn't brought up my dismissal of his advice at recruitment.

I dismissed any angry, self-haranguing thoughts from my mind as best I could. There was no point in dwelling on a minor misdemeanour - best to prove my poor first impression wrong. Instead, I turned to look at my lance-brothers.

I noticed that the heavyset youth who had come close to pummelling me on the phantom was one of them. I gulped - best not to stay enemies with him. We would be living and training together, after all. My father told me that the barracks creates comradeship amongst all who enter it, no matter their differences. I just hoped that he was proved right in this case.

"Eyes Forward! Form up!"

This was the Major again. Fortunately, he wasn't just addressing me this time - all of my lance mates were milling about, still looking around when he came over to us. Even so, I was mentally cursing a storm as we formed up into a row of twelve, all staring forward. Clearly he was the Major to whom we were being assigned, because another had taken his datapad and was now calling out names for the last two lances.

So, I was getting that same Major who had tried to talk me out of enlisting, also the very same who had called me out in the worst possible way on arrival to the training grounds. My luck cannot possibly get any better, can it?

"I am Major Nix Kar," he declared, still clutching his bu-vao stave in his right hand. "I will be your father, your god and the demon who haunts you in your worst nightmares night after night. You are broken metal, dirtied ore dug from the ground - but I shall refine you, break you, beat you and forge you into the finest blades. And fine you shall be. When this all ends, I shall be the figure you will come to admire and love the most in your miserable lives."

He then changed his tone in an instant.

"But this instant, you listen to me and me alone! You are assigned to North section, East barracks! Get marching, two files of six! Double time!"

We obeyed instantly, none of us wanting to feel the blow of that bone-shattering staff anytime soon. With Major Nix in the lead - I had to remember we referred to each other by birth names here, not by clan - we quick-marched to the East Barracks, with the Obelisk compass as our guide.

The barrack blocks, East and West, were divided into three sections - North, South and Central. The first two sections were those closest to the North and South entrances to the training ground, respectively, which were located on the shortest sides of the rectangle. The Central section was, as obviously implied, between the two of them.

We were headed to the Northern section, or North-Eastern section, alternatively. Each barracks housed three of our lances - one section for each lance. First we passed through an entrance at the central part of the barracks, before heading down a corridor that lead to the Northern dormitory.

The dormitory walls and ceiling were totally plain, of plain white wattle and daub, with a hard floor of ice-cold tiles. The dormitory itself was nothing more than two rows of six closely packed beds, one on each side of the room, with plain sheets. A dull metal locker lay at the foot of each bed, presumably containing our essentials. Privacy and warm creature comforts are the first things that go out of the window in the military.

Major Nix ordered us all to line up in front of our beds, not caring which one we chose. Soon enough, we stood in our rows of six, facing each other across the dormitory.

"I will help you make yourselves at home here," Nix grinned like a predator, which immediately told me that he did not exactly have our personal comfort and welfare in mind when he said this. This was proved a second later when he leered, "which means I will have to take something from you, and you will have to give something to me."

He gave a nod to some unseen figures outside of the door to our dorm room. The whir of anti-grav generators suddenly broke the silence as a hover trolley, pushed by a burly looking Minor, was manoeuvred right into the middle of our two rows. There was some sort of blue-purple device attached to it with a gaping maw at the top - I could almost immediately feel the plasma-generated heat glowing off it like a raging fire, adding to the already boiling levels in this room.

Within seconds of the arrival of the portable plasma furnace into our hapless midst, Major Nix bellowed one, simple command.

" _Every recruit strip off!"_

The Minor who had pushed the furnace immediately joined in haranguing us to remove our civilian clothing, and then he was joined by two leaner and younger Minors who stormed through the entrance to the room, screaming out the foulest range of obscenities that I could possibly have thought off. Together, they all made a determined effort to get us naked in seconds.

I had already removed my cloak - it was stifling in the heat of this place - and was already on the way to unbuttoning and removing my tunic-shirt. It was at this moment that the same hulking Minor who had brought in the plasma furnace suddenly towered over me.

I am ashamed to say that I came close to wetting the same clothes I was removing. Fortunately I was able to hold it in at the last minute - I doubt I would have survived the next moment somewhat intact if I hadn't.

Well, _somewhat_ intact, anyway.

"You're not moving fast enough, runt!" The big Minor snarled.

"Just need to get these buttons off..."

My protests were in vain.

The Minor grabbed the collar of my tunic with one hand, the band of my trousers by the other. I was only able to put up the most pathetic resistance possible as he used his talons to pull my attire apart. The sound my clothes made as he destroyed them...I never previously thought that it would be possible to completely rip off someone's clothes with such ease, in one simple, mighty flex of muscles, but this man blew all my prior beliefs out of the water. To this day, whenever I hear something ripping - paper, cardboard, _clothes_ , _anything_...I think back to this moment.

He completely tore off my tunic, buttons and all, in one savage tug. My trousers protested, desperate to stay on my legs where they belonged - but the bastard ripped them right down the middle, until they were nothing but a torn pile of rags at my feet.

He then scooped the remains of my leggings up from the floor - I made sure to get out of the way, having being already nearly bowled over during his murder of my poor clothes - and they soon joined what remained of my tunic and my still intact cloak in his wicked claws.

I was now left in nothing but my underwear. The man gave a torturer's leer as he tossed what had once been my beloved attire of civilian life into the glowing, gaping maw of the furnace. A puff of smoke rose from it as the fabric was burned away into ashes. The windows were open so it could be dispersed, but even so I couldn't escape the sweet smell of my incinerated clothes, never to be worn again in my miserable life.

I just about managed to hold back the tears of humiliation. Just about. As you can see, I did not entirely survive this moment intact.

Major Nix and his fellow sadists threw more clothing - or rags, I was not the only one who had been forcibly stripped - into the furnace's hungry mouth, until eventually every trace of our civilian identity was burned away in its hellish stomach. Nothing that is, except our underwear, which we did our best to stand straight and dignified in, in spite of all. We were now at Nix's mercy as he addressed us once more.

"Whatever life you lead before is gone, burned away with these clothes," he declared merrily, sniffing the scent of the smoke as if it were the sweetest possible meal being cooked for him. "Your new life begins today. You will find it in your lockers." His tone changed to darkness. "Open them."

We did so, each and every one of us recruits knowing what was good for us.

Within the lockers were perhaps the only possessions we would have during our whole time in the military. Bathing oils, soaps and other toiletries, towels, clipping tool kits for our feathers and talons, personal mirrors, canteens for water - but what immediately caught my attention was the pair of smooth bodysuits neatly folded alongside one another.

It was these that Major Nix immediately made us aware of.

"The bodysuit will be a part of your whole life from now on. You will live, run, fight and sleep in it. Indeed, you may well die in it."

He let that thought hang. It was not the first time such a thought had entered my mind.

"Whatever armour you wear in the future will fit onto it magnetically and automatically. It will be a part of your body - It _will be_ your body from now on." He then gave a sneer, "But since you are all such careless, mindless bags of shit, we know there is a strong risk you will manage to lose track of it. To compensate, we've given you a spare. Put the first one on!"

As we did so, I was amazed by how accurate the Major's words were - the suit was almost like a second skin, perfectly flexible, comfortable, almost hardly noticeable. It covered all parts of the body except for our hands, feet and throats. I didn't even feel any extra heat from it - it was a dream compared to my stuffy civilian clothing. That didn't remove the shock of the change, but it did dampen it somewhat.

"Wears like a dream, doesn't it?" Nix continued. "Well, it looks like you might just have a place here. For today, at least. Tomorrow, your training begins. Fortunately for you worms, the sun is now setting. Get some rest, for we rise early tomorrow."

I could see through the windows that he was right - throughout the whole time we had been here, the day had been ending in spite of the bright sunlight at our arrival. We'd arrived at a time when this part of the second largest continent of Eayn was in late afternoon-early evening, and with all that had just happened I hadn't even noticed it. It had been early morning on T'Vao when we had left - we'd all be reeling from a horrendous jet lag by the next morning. I began to suspect that our trainers had hoped for that effect, having timed our arrival that way deliberately. Right now, the sky was steadily darkening. Time had passed pretty quick.

The Minors who had forcibly stripped us filed out of the room, chuckling and cackling at our expense as they left. No doubt they had enjoyed a good show for themselves. Major Nix was the last to leave.

"Until the next morning, scum." he jeered as he left for the door,

We remained silent, none of us willing to open our mouths. Just as he reached the door, the Major suddenly spun around on his heels, his voice turning dangerous. He clearly didn't like his bedtime farewells going unanswered.

"I said, _Until the next morning, scum!_ "

"Until the next morning, Major!" We all shouted in unison. Satisfied, he left, slamming the door behind him.

We then fell at ease, grumbling, grunting and groaning, with some of our lance beginning to chat amongst themselves. For my part, I collapsed onto my bed. Hard though it was, it would be my only place of comfort and refuge during the next few months.

Sure enough, my luck got even better. That same burly youth who I had come close to brawling with had taken the bed right beside me. Like me, he was settling down to some rest.

I turned to him. If that vaunted military comradeship was to start somewhere, it might as well be here.

"So, when can I expect those fires of living hell you promised me?" I asked, with as much mock innocence as I could muster.

The youth let out an irritable growl.

"When I find the energy to start wringing your neck."

"Which will be?"

"A very long time."

I chuckled, satisfied.

"It might be useful to save our energy, then. Should we try to learn each other's names, first?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then turned to me.

"Par Vil. From the plantation flatlands north of Han. You?"

"Trau Fac. From the village of Ream, in the wetlands to the south."

He smirked.

"A wetlander. That explains your scent."

"Those stains on your tunic explained you."

Par chuckled. Clearly, my hunch that he was from the plantation lands were correct - he certainly had their hardened attitude.

"Don't remind me of my clothes. Losing them today was bad enough."

"As the Major said, it is our new life, starting anew. Sounds like it is that way for both of us."

He grunted, but I it was not a dismissive grunt. He was actually acknowledging me properly. A start, I suppose.

"I guess it is." He then settled into rest. I did the same.

Well, things had gotten off to an interesting start - at this place, with my appointed head instructor, with my nearby comrade - but who knew what tomorrow would bring. Tomorrow, by the sound of everything, would be very hard.

But for now, whatever problems were waiting for us when the sun rose again could wait until then. That, dear readers, is the beauty of evening and the sleep it brings.

I would enjoy such moments while they lasted. I had the feeling they would become very precious in my life ahead.

My life, starting anew from this day.


	5. I: Chapter 5 - First Run

**Chapter Five: First Run**

 **26th May, 2533 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Ninth Age of Reclamation, 8th Solar Cycle (Covenant Calendar)**

 **Eayn, Y'Deio System**

That night was one where you don't remember whatever dreams you had while asleep. If I had any dreams, that is. That my mind might have just entered a domain of nothingness, devoid of form or memory, is an equal likelihood.

My point is that the whole period between going to bed in the North-East barrack block of the Vara Training Grounds and the morning afterward was nothing but a timeless blur. It seemed like only a few seconds between falling asleep in that bunk and waking up. It was just as well - if I had been stuck in a fantasy of my own making while asleep in that place, I would not have been as well prepared to rise as I had been.

"Hey nestling! Wake yourself, quick! The Major's coming!"

For a moment I looked around the bare walls surrounding this hard, very non-homelike bed and forgot where I was. That feeling only lasted a second or so - thank Chu'ot.

"Trau! Get out of bed, _quick!_ "

To my surprise, the timely warning came from none other than my new neighbour Par Vil - it took me a few seconds to recognise his voice. A little bit of that vaunted comradeship was beginning to emerge at this early stage. That had to be a good sign. He had even used my name this time - though this was most likely because he didn't want our good Major exploding right next to him. We'd have to take some time to see if we'd become friends.

I wish to make a quick clarification before continuing. Our batch of recruits were all from the Han City area; but not everyone from Han bears the same clan name despite the whole territory being under the control of the Fac clan. As I've said before, multiple clans were brought into our umbrella during the age of Han the Navigator; many still share our territory. The Vil clan was certainly one of those and I knew there were also members of other clans who had immigrated more recently. There were dozens of clan names in our barracks alone.

One might be tempted to think that being a member of the ruling clan made me special - except I knew it wouldn't, because the military ignored clans altogether. We were referred to only by our birth names while serving. All were equal as fodder here.

Anyway, I took the hint from Par and swung my legs out from under the covers, my whole body with them. My feet quickly touched the cold, tiled floor, and I straightened myself as best I could.

Sure enough, Major Nix and those same two young Minors who had sworn at us to get our clothes off the previous evening were coming straight for us. They were proceeding down the aisle of the dormitory, yelling and prodding recruits with their bu-vao staves to get out of bed. The Major's sharp, snarling voice thundered throughout our block.

" _Every recruit out of the beds and on my deck!_ "

His use of the term 'deck' was traditional; our people have been seafarers since the dawn of our civilisation, and from the beginning our warriors were nearly always pirate crewmen or marines. Henceforth, to this day Kig-Yar soldiers commonly refer to any ground or floor they stand on as a 'deck'.

" _Get your asses up!_ " Yelled one of the Minors, using his stave to whack the backside of one sleepy recruit for good measure.

Fortunately both my bed and Par's were at the far end of the dormitory, furthest from the entrance. We had more time than most to escape the mighty storm of reckoning that was Major Nix during waking hours. I wouldn't be in his line of fire this time - hopefully.

It was definitely very early morning, judging from the view outside the barrack windows. The sky was still cloaked in darkness with no sign of the burning face of Y'Deio - but an approaching twilight told that daybreak was near. As you can imagine, we weren't well suited to waking up at such a time - it was made even worse by the fact that we were already jet-lagged by the time differences between T'Vao and Eayn. So it was to be expected that we didn't all get out of our beds as quickly as Nix would have liked. It was also even more inevitable that the moaners started to surface.

The Major marched down the aisle, frustrated by the stumbling, bleary-eyed raw recruits struggling out of their beds, twisting bed sheets in their wake and weak on their feet like new-born livestock. He urged us all to get on our feet, faster and faster.

"Wake up you dogs! Stand at attention!"

It was the recruit on the other side of the aisle - a short, jumpy youth on the bed directly opposite of mine - who made the fatal mistake of speaking his mind.

" _We're going as fast as we can_..." he muttered, not as quietly as he'd hoped.

Major Nix stopped in an instant, his heels and wooden stave slamming into the floor with a sharp _clack_. In an instant everyone in that room fell silent, standing to attention as best we could. That young man opposite me immediately clapped his mouth shut, no doubt praying to every deity or spiritual force he knew of that he would not be discovered as the one who had spoken.

The Major stood just inches from my bed, his predatory eyes scanning this end of the dormitory for the recruit who had dared to backtalk him. My species is well known for its keen senses - sight, smell and _hearing_. The latter was most useful to Nix in this situation, as he was able to pinpoint the smart-mouthed recruit with ease, thus already knowing who to call out. The fact that he just stood there glaring at all of us within the culprit's immediate radius was probably more for psychological effect than anything else - a display of his mastery over all of us. I knew he wouldn't round on _me_ personally - at least not now.

Even so, when Nix's eyes met mine I almost felt my heart stop dead. I suppressed a sigh of relief as he turned his back to me and paced towards that idiot who should have kept his mouth shut.

"Would you care to repeat yourself, recruit?" He asked, with a smile of mock friendliness. He had his prey right where he wanted.

Yet the fool still didn't think before speaking. Even so, when he addressed the Major I could still see him shaking as he summoned his nerves to speak again.

"I...I was moving as fast as I could, Major! We all were!"

A blood-chilling silence followed. We fully expected an eruption of fury that would deafen all of us, or for the offending recruit to receive a flurry of blows from that dreaded stave. Worse still, the Major might be angered enough to subject all of us to a collective punishment. My father had warned me about such practices, when he'd spoken about the penal code and articles of war of the Covenant Army. In a collective punishment every man in the lance was forced to beat, bite and slash at each other until the lesson had been well learnt by the whole group. If that happened here, the loose-lipped recruit would instantly become the least popular member of the 4th Training Lance.

Fortunately that did not happen. Instead, to our universal shock, Major Nix simply gave a nod and an amused grunt of acknowledgement.

"As fast as you could..." He mused on that point as he paced around, regarding all of us on both sides of the dormitory. "Fast as you could..."

He then started to chuckle. His amusement seemed totally sincere, and just for that moment some of the recruits let their guard down, turning their eyes toward Nix in sheet bafflement. Even the two Minors who had accompanied him stood there looking puzzled at their superior's behaviour.

What was even more shocking was that Nix did not call out those giving bemused looks. Instead, his chuckle turned to a hearty, inexplicable bought of laughter as he addressed us once more.

"Well, how about it boys? Are you all fully satisfied that you got out of bed as fast as you could? As satisfied as this fine young man? Please answer, I love to hear everybody's opinion."

A number of nervous shouts in the affirmative followed one after the other, until gradually every recruit - myself included - answered with a resounding "Yes Major!" After all, I _hadn't_ got out of bed faster in my life than I had just done then. I might as well answer 'yes' as well. Whatever answer I gave, the Major would likely still come down on us. If my answer was different from everyone else's he might just single me out as well; that was something I _definitely_ didn't want.

"Well, I'm glad to see you're all so pleased with yourselves this morning," the Major grinned. Then, in a split-second his smile vanished. I stood attentive, knowing that his wrath would soon rear its head once more. His voice softened dangerously. "But I know of soldiers who can move faster. One group of soldiers in particular comes to mind. Would you like to know who they are?"

Just as that same recruit who had spoken out of turn began to give an affirmative answer, Major Nix came down on him like a ton of bricks.

" _Eyes front!"_

The youth wisely stood at attention with his gaze straight ahead - along with everyone else in the room. Satisfied that he now had our full attention, Nix continued.

"It might surprise you to know that the soldiers I have in mind are human."

I think we were all surprised - though none of us dared to let it show. Humans were weaklings, cowards, primitives - almost as useless in battle as Unggoy judging from news reports from the front. Surely no human could match a T'Vaoan in speed and strength? Our unanimously pro-war clan leaders would always eagerly say that they could not. Their technology was as inferior as their physical form - we heard this in every San 'Shyuum sermon, every publicised Sangheili field report, every story from soldiers and shipmistresses on the front-lines. The inherent inferiority of the human race was something every average member of the population across the Covenant Empire - no matter their species - knew for certain. Why else were we winning virtually every battle in this war? The bulletins reported nothing but victory.

Still, my mind took me back to that last conversation with my father - his battles with humanity had clearly shaken him. He had told me of the battles he fought, given his take on this great war in which we were locked in and told me clearly that we faced a determined foe. Above all, he had made clear that civilians at home were not getting the full story. I had a horrible feeling from the moment I signed up that I too would gradually learn the truth about this war, just as he had done. What I would hear now would no doubt be the first step in that process.

"Yes, _human_ ," Nix continued, somehow sensing our confusion. "An elite force of their soldiers. They call themselves... _Helljumpers_." The alien word slipped awkwardly of his tongue, as if it were inherently poisonous to the vocal chords of our race. "We have come to call them _imps_ in this Army. They specialise in orbital drops. They arrive onto a battlefield with the speed of bolts from a lightning storm. Sometimes you'll see them dropping in full view - other times you won't. They are just as much silent assassins as shock troops."

The Major paced up to that same poor stupid recruit who had first contradicted him. His teeth were now firmly clenched as he spoke.

"I've seen them shoot down files of our kind with silenced gunfire in the blink of an eye. Failing that, they will slit your miserable throat in your sleep. Oh yes - they like nothing better than to kill slothful scum they catch snoozing. I've found so many wretched Unggoy dead in the morning with their throats cut, never to wake from their slumber. On Harvest, I saw the imps slaughter a full regular lance in five seconds. _Five. Seconds._ "

He emphasised those last two words as if he was scraping them against a slab of granite. The unfortunate young man who was the prime subject of this lecture was shaking open-mouthed at this point. I will confess that I was also disturbed by Nix's revelation. I had heard from my father that humans were dangerous - but this sent a chill down my spine.

"Now, all of you got out of your beds in - what time do you make it, Lar?"

"Twenty-five seconds, Major." It was one of the younger Minors who had answered. I saw that he had a hand-held chronometer in his hand. I found it almost impossible to believe that much time had passed as we had cleared our beds.

"Twenty. Five. _Seconds."_ Nix emphasised those words as he pushed his face into that of the recruit he was addressing, his voice dangerously quiet and softened to a hiss. "If imps had dropped in here, they would have been able to kill you all five times over in the time it took for you to get up. Keep that in mind." Then his voice returned to its full terrifying volume. " _You will wake up faster! Is that clear?!_ "

" _Yes Major!"_ The recruit replied with as much volume and certainty as he could. There would be no further insubordination from him, that was for sure.

"Very well." Nix now turned to look at all of us. "Forget phrases such as 'fast as you could' while you are here. Such rubbish will not serve you well during my training. Your best is not good enough, recruits. But fear not - it is still only the first day." That predatory grin returned once more. "So let us begin. _Form up in the yard outside! Two rows of six! Let's MOVE!_ "

We swarmed out of the dormitory without any further hesitation. Nix certainly knew how to motivate us - no-one was going to fall behind or question his authority after that little tutorial on the human Helljumpers.

It was fortunate that we had all gone to sleep in our bodysuits - it was also a point in our favour that the bodysuit was designed to be slept in as well as for everyday wear. And it seldom needed washing - quite a marvel. _We_ all needed a shower, however. Our bodies were already smelling from having got out of bed, and the dusty arrival yesterday. We would doubtless be in even greater need of a good wash after whatever Major Nix had planned for us - but I suspected it would be some time yet before we would be allowed to shower.

Spurred on by the instructors we poured out of East Barracks into the sandy training ground, and began to assemble into a close formation of two rows of six recruits, every man in the first row positioned directly in front of the man behind him.

Soon enough the whole of the first military unit to which I was assigned, the 4th Training Lance of the Vara Grounds, stood at attention in the cool air of the pre-dawn hours. Though the sky was still darkened the whole of the training ground was lit up with plasma floodlights, so we could all see each other. I could see that the other two lances from East Barracks had already assembled into the central ground. The recruits from West Barracks were nowhere to be seen - I later learned that they had been woken even earlier than we had.

I allowed myself a glance at my comrades. Aside from Par, I hadn't learned everyone else's names yet - we'd all been too tired and confused that first evening to really bother. I suspected that when we got to know each other, it would be today. I could immediately see that we were all a young bunch - the oldest amongst us were most likely in their mid-twenties. Young people are the ideal raw material for an army, as I've mentioned before. It looked like I was by far the youngest, however. That recruit who'd had the guts to answer the Major back while getting up looked to be the closest to my age. Maybe I should get to know him.

But there was no time to dwell on such matters. Major Nix was already addressing us, his sharp tones echoing through the air.

"As the leading instructor of East Barracks, I'll be presiding over this session today," he announced with grim cheer. "So just for today, you all belong to me."

I could see he was not just addressing our lance - he was also talking to the other two in our barracks. That confirmed what he said about being in charge of all recruits this side of the grounds. I could also see that other Major who had screamed at all of us to get off the phantom that brought us here yesterday. I could see he was assigned to the 5th Training Lance, located in the central section of our barracks. Right now he stood to the left of Nix, arms crossed, along with a third Major to his right. The assisting Minors were also ever present, staves at the ready.

"We'll be starting with a little run, boys" Nix declared. "But first, let's change the arrangement here. Those rows of six will now be two lines in a column! Three columns alongside each other! Think you can manage it? _Show me!_ "

We all obeyed. In my lance everyone in the two rows turned forward, and we became two vertical lines in a vertical column. The other two lances did the same, moving into position on either side of our lance. We were harangued by our instructors throughout the whole time - but somehow, we managed to get into a perfect formation with the 4th Lance in the centre.

"So, you know how to follow basic instructions after all," Nix leered. "You're almost as good as Unggoy at this. _Almost_. Now let's see if you can run, too. Major Krel and I will take you out."

He jogged to the head of our formation, along with Major Krel - that same ill-tempered man from the phantom who headed 5th Lance. He now took over instruction, his gravelly voice echoing across the grounds.

"Follow us closely - anyone who falls out of formation will be pushing up and down for the rest of the day! Ten laps around the whole ground - _let's move!_ "

On his cue, we all got running. Major Krel didn't seem like one to make idle threats, so we all made sure that we stayed in formation. I constantly tried to keep my place intact, eager not to be spending the whole day doing push-ups. We were all able to follow the Majors and keep track of one another quite easily, though; the plasma floodlights saw to that. We were able to make full circuits of the entire rectangle that was the training ground in good time.

As ever, the sand of the ground was heavily kicked up by all those feet and got everywhere. I could even feel some of the grains getting into my eyes and mouth, but I successfully fought to keep my mind off it. By the time we finished the tenth and final lap of the whole training ground, we were all covered in dust and sweat.

Yet this was only the beginning.

"Well done recruits," Nix smiled. "Quite an impressive run you made...considering that was just a warm-up."

 _Wait...the WARM-UP?!_

"This morning, my good friend Major Krel and I will be taking you to our favourite spot around these parts. You get to it via a nice little route you'll be running, past Vara town and the coast." His sadist's grin returned once more. "I'm certain you'll love it. Follow me and find out - Major Krel will be bringing up the rear! We leave via the northern entrance!"

We all groaned and shuddered with dread - whatever the Majors' 'favourite spot' was, I doubted we would share their sentiment.

Krel jogged to the rear of our formation. Nix retrieved a small plasma lantern from his belt, which he clicked on. It emitted a pale-blue light, which was cancelled out by the floodlights of the training ground. On his command, we jogged out through the stone arch of the northern entrance. As soon as we left the lit-up training ground and passed into the near darkness of the pre-dawn morning, the purpose of Nix's lantern became clear - we were to follow its beam as a guide. As another lantern-beam shone through our formation, I knew that Krel had one at hand too - so he could keep track of us and also know where he was going.

It was just those two Majors who would be accompanying us on this run - the Minors were staying behind, no doubt assigned to other tasks.

It was a morning of patchy but heavy cloud. The great mother globe of Chu'ot, her glorious rings and the many orbs and lights that were her moons were all obscured. There was the occasional gleam of illumination in the dark sky that suggested her presence, as well as the far-off light of approaching dawn from Y'Deio - but that was all.

Apart from the jogging beams of the lanterns there was scant light to illuminate my surroundings, so I could make out very little of the landscape that we immediately passed through. All I could make out of the road that snaked out from the northern entrance was that it was cobbled, the talons on our feet clacking on it as we ran. We didn't need shoes - my race has evolved tough feet which allow us to forgo footwear in most conditions.

As we left the training ground, the air grew colder. Something about the design of that training arena insulated heat - one we left it the temperature dropped very noticeably. There was also a steady, moderate wind that was beginning to blow in from the sea; even with my skinsuit on I still felt the cold. I was able to cope, though; coming from a moon frequented by storms and icy winds does help.

Occasionally I could see long blades of grass blowing in the wind, or the hulking shape of a tree. Sometimes I could even see the odd stelae or rock pile - ancient markers left for travellers eons ago. Other than that, the first half hour or so of that run were dominated by darkness.

At least another quarter of an hour passed before I began to hear the sounds of the sea, and smelt the salty breeze in the air. Our training grounds were not far from the coast, and Nix said that the road we were taking would be running parallel to it - so now I knew we had to be approaching the coastline.

The Ha'chut peninsular itself juts out from the north coast of Ah'lomet supercontinent, an almost triangular piece of land pointing directly north towards the supercontinent of Ruuht. The Vara Training Grounds lie in the centre, in the area furthest from any coastline. This is not very far, obviously - the Ha'chut peninsular is very slim. As such, it took us only one full hour of running before the north-western coast of Ha'chut came into view.

Sure enough, after we passed another grassy hill the western shore of the Ha'chut peninsular appeared before us. As if that stretch of coast were greeting our arrival, a gap in the clouds appeared. In this gap, a portion of the mighty face of great Chu'ot shone through, causing the sea to sparkle like an ocean of diamonds in her brilliant light.

That sight truly lifted up our spirits - we began to run even faster. You may know that several of the ancient monotheistic religions of our people worshipped the great planet of Chu'ot as an all-seeing, omnipresent goddess; very similar to how I have heard ancient humans worshipped their system's sun as a deity. Common cultural traits can be found across this universe, in my experience.

I personally never really embraced any particular religion, not even the sacred path of our Covenant (I wouldn't go around saying that out loud, obviously). Yet as we suddenly increased our speed at the sight of Chu'ot's glorious face, it seemed to me that maybe we had inherited something from our more spiritual ancestors. Perhaps great mother Chu'ot really was spurring her children on, driving us ever forward.

Anyway, I digress. The road we were running on winded west to the coast until it took a sharp turn to the north, bringing it parallel to the coastline. We felt this turn in the road as we ran, changing our direction with the road. After this, we began to see lights in the distance.

On the western coast of Ha'chut, directly north-west of our training ground, lies the ancient town of Vara. This settlement dates back to the Seafaring Age - in its heyday it was the largest on the whole peninsular. The town itself is still a major port, and I could see the many bright lights of its streets and buildings clustered into a single shining mass on the shore of the sea. The route we were running on would not take us through the town; we would be going straight past it on that same cobbled coastal highway which bypassed it. But we would see another very interesting sight.

This same building was closely associated with our training grounds. The reason for this association was very obvious when we finally approached it on that winding road, as we passed the lights of the town to our left.

It was a huge circular stone amphitheatre, dominating the land from the top of a large hill outside of the town on the right-hand side of the road. The top of the hill had clearly been artificially cut away to form a totally flat plateau. It was on this artificial flat-top that this building overlooked the town in a commanding position. The stadium was illuminated enough from the face of Chu'ot and the lights of the town to make out in some detail. The great stone arena was surrounded by a circle of those familiar bronze pillars that surrounded our training ground, from which banners flapped in the wind. The seating area where spectators would sit was sheltered by a thatched roof, which ran full circle around the arena. The actual arena space itself was left unsheltered.

I'd already guessed that such a building would be close by. The Vara Training Grounds had been the training grounds of gladiators in antiquity - so they would have been originally built close to a gladiator arena. Also, the town of Vara would have been a major population centre in this part of the Ah'lomet supercontinent in those days; nearly all major population centres had similar amphitheatres in the Seafaring Age, especially in towns or cities close to the sea.

In such places the clans were able to compete or resolve their differences by pitting their strongest champions against one another, thus giving an alternative to war and raiding. Gladiators probably came here by ship from as far afield as Ruuht itself. Gladiator matches were also common entertainment as well - they always drew huge crowds, hence the need for such a huge arena. When such fights and matches were held, they were almost always to the death in those days. There are still gladiator fights to this day - though to my knowledge they are no longer fought to the death, except perhaps in some lawless backwater pirate colony.

This particular arena also served another purpose - one that Major Nix was all too happy to reveal to us as we ran past it.

"A fine sight, isn't it boys?" He mused. "You'll be seeing more of it - we'll be holding hand-to-hand combat matches there later in your training!"

I gulped as I we left the amphitheatre behind us, jogging on into the darkness as the lights of Vara receded into the distance to our rear. I wondered if we would be fighting in front of hordes of spectators - that only added to my anxiety. Some things hadn't changed since ancient times, it seemed.

We ran further and further north down the coastal road, before we made a ninety degree turning onto another road running east at a set of irukan fields, which took us further inland. After this turning, the cobbled stone we had been running on soon gave way to the sand of a dirt-track. Wherever Major Nix's 'favourite spot' was, it was clearly in a wilderness.

Just as we had kicked up dust back in the training ground, the same thing happened as we ran that dirt road. This time, though, clouds of dust were not all we had to worry about. We had been running for nearly two hours non-stop; the T'Vaoan breed of my species is renowned for its speed and stamina, but even we cannot keep running for miles and hours without difficulty. Add to that the fact that we had already been heavily put through our paces on the training ground, we were already worn out by this point.

Sure enough, as we ran up that damned dirt road our formation began to lose its previous aura of perfection. People started dropping out of formation, struggling to keep up with everybody else. Some slipped on the dirt, loose leaves, mud and gravel and fell onto their backsides or worse face-down into all of that crap on the ground. I could hear the sounds of their falls, along with the inevitable growling and swearing that followed.

I even saw one recruit stop to take a break in the rear. He only got a few seconds though – Major Krel rounded on him with a vengeance in the rear before shoving him roughly back into formation. He then marshalled a few other recruits to pick up those who had fallen.

I pushed on, even as my muscles and chest were burning. I had prove myself – all this training was serving a purpose, I knew that for certain. I had signed up for it; as Champion Xen had said, none of us were victims here. That applied to me just as much as everyone else running this track.

We ran and ran, past those fields of waving irukan as they were blown in waves by the wind like an ocean. By this point, the life-giving yellow orb of Y'Deio was starting to rise on the horizon, breaking through the patches of cloud. As that glorious dawn came, our visibility considerably increased. We could see straw hat-wearing farmhands working in the fields, along with harvesters floating up and down on anti-grav units as they harvested more of that crop for export.

Much of the farmland around here seemed to be devoted to growing irukan. This had become increasingly common with much of our farms, given the insatiable source of cheap food that crop was for the whole of the Covenant.

That particular crop was not native to Eayn – it was an import from Sanghelios. The Ministry of Sustenance, under pressure from the High Council, wanted more food produced for the ever-growing Sangheili population. Through the Covenant's semi-command economy they had ordered more grains of irukan to be grown in any space our vast empire could make available. Eayn was judged to be suitable, along with T'Vao. That decree was made decades before this time.

Our farmers were 'encouraged' to grow irukan and other Sangheili foods as a cash crop. I'll admit, a lot of them became very wealthy and well off from growing it. Kig-Yar traders also certainly benefited, as did shipping magnates like Chur'R-Fac who grew fat on irukan exports.

Yet there was also a price that was paid. Besides feeding the Sangheili, irukan was now also used in making the mass-production slop the Unggoy ate, so the demand simply increased and increased. More and more of our land was being devoted to growing irukan over our own crops; forests were cut down and communities were uprooted as huge new fields of the wretched stuff were planned and grown. The increased production of those grains drove their prices lower and lower - now irukan food products were favoured by our own people over our own native foods.

Meanwhile our farmers had to work harder and harder to turn a profit in growing that cheap crap -they increasingly had to rely on government subsidy. Worse still, some of our farmers were also 'encouraged' to move to Sanghelios and work for its population growing their food there, costing us agricultural manpower in our own home system.

So as a result of all this our farmers were now producing more food for the Sangheili and Unggoy than our own population, and we ended up eating more of that cheap mass-market Sangheili crop than our native crops. It was easy to see why we had so much love for the four-jaws, wasn't it?

 _Enough rambling, Trau..it could get you into trouble..._

We ran and ran. Leaving the irukan fields behind we made a second ninety degree turn onto a winding dirt track that took us back south, this time closer to the eastern coast of the Ha'chut peninsular. Here the land was much less developed, more wilder. It was more wooded and hilly, and now and then I could see wildlife in the emerging light of early dawn - the odd bird flying or roosting, or even a small mammal or reptile racing through the undergrowth. I just hoped we were near to our destination - I was running out of breath and my lungs felt like they had been run through a stretching machine. I'm sure all my comrades felt the same way.

Luck was on our side. We turned once more onto a narrow trail into a deep forest, and continued for another few minutes before Major Nix finally called us to a halt. We stopped at last, gushing with exhaustion and eager to stretch our cramped muscles and expel all that waste air from our lungs. At least were no longer in total darkness - the dawn light was steadily becoming daylight - though the morning was still spoiled by the large patches of grey cloud.

Nix and Krel allowed us to take a breather for a minute or so, before he addressed us again.

"Well children, I see you're all still with us," he grinned, not looking the least bit spent from that cross-country run. No doubt sprinting over such distance was second nature to him. T'Vaoans in the military truly do make full use of our race's natural stamina and speed - that had to be the purpose of this exercise.

As I would find out next, though, it also served another purpose.

"I promised that I would take you to my favourite spot. So scum, welcome to..." Nix stepped aside, gesturing with his talons for us to take a look at whatever was behind him. "...the _Ravine!_ "

As soon as they got a look at the Major's favourite spot in the whole of Ha'chut, my fellow recruits let their jaws fall open in utter horror, their eyes widening in sheer terror, their tongues drooping out in sheer disbelief. Once I saw the reason for their expressions, I soon joined them in gaping at the latest item of twisted ingenuity to emerge from our instructors' sick minds.

As we expected, it was anything but _our_ favourite spot.

Nix was drawing our attention to a great ravine, about three, four metres or more across from edge to edge. That might not sound like much, and I didn't think it looked that bad at first either - until I saw how deep the ravine was. The bottom of that accursed gorge had to go down for hundreds of feet, if not well over a thousand. All I knew was that the bottom was almost completely misted over in the early morning - that was _definitely_ not a good sign. Through gaps in the mist that appeared periodically and revealed the bottom of the ravine, I saw that my initial estimate of over a thousand feet was probably accurate.

Jagged black rocks and dead tree branches lined the sides of the ravine, ready to catch any poor bastard who fell down it and shatter every bone in their bodies. Adding to that, there were great entanglements of thorn-vines twisting across the cliff-edges, with thorns that looked easily capable of impaling a fully-grown Kig-Yar unlucky enough to fall into the ravine's maw.

That might just happen to us - to me. I already had a horrible feeling what Majors Nix and Krel wanted us to do next.

 _No...please no...damn it, we've already been running to death and now THIS?_

It was Krel who delivered the bad news.

"All of you signed up for this - none of you are victims," he declared. "Some of you, however, might not have been as serious as others when you put your signatures to our pads. So, to prove your desire to become soldiers is genuine, we require...what should we call it?" He wracked his brain, before clapping his hands giving a leer of pure, unrestrained sadism. "A leap of faith! An appropriate term, wouldn't you say Major Nix?"

"That I would," Nix cackled with equal leer. "Maggots, your task is simple. To prove your willingness to accept our training - to serve our Covenant in battle - you must _all_ jump the Ravine. _All_ of you. Who'd like to go first?"


	6. I: Chapter 6 - First Leap

**Chapter Six: First Leap**

 **26th May, 2533 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Ninth Age of Reclamation, 8th Solar Cycle (Covenant Calendar)**

 **Eayn, Y'Deio System**

It was a huge surprise that only a few seconds passed after Major Nix's fatal announcement, before somebody actually spoke up.

"I'll do it sir."

I tensed up as I heard that voice - so young, nervous and unsure. Nevertheless, it took great courage for that person to speak up and put himself forward then at that moment, whoever he was...

"Thank you for volunteering Trau," Nix replied, his voice cutting into my thoughts.

 _Wait...what? That couldn't have been my voice...it couldn't have been...it couldn't..._

"Now you can lead the way across the Ravine." Once again, that executioner's smirk returned. "Show us how it's done, recruit."

I had to take a few seconds to process the fact that _I_ had been the one to put myself forward. It was a strange moment, one that I still ponder over to this day. I had not felt myself speak, nor had I felt the words leaving my throat. The voice that spoke up that day sounded distant, unknown, as if it belonged to another.

It was almost as if the sheer shock at seeing that monstrous ravine before my eyes lead to an out-of-body experience. My mind independently knew that this would be a major turning point - the flashpoint, my first great step on the path of the warrior.

Why was I the one who chose to jump first? That is something else I still ponder. It may have simply been that the sheer shock of the moment forced the pledge from my mouth. _Someone_ was going to have to jump first - and someone _else_ would have done, even if I hadn't spoken.

You should not be mislead into thinking that I was a special case among that group of T'Vaoan recruits gathered on the edge of the precipice that day. There were others who were no doubt physically and mentally bolder, stronger, quicker and tougher than I was. I was the youngest, I will grant you - but some of the others were older than me by only a few months.

For example, consider someone like my new comrade Par - he came from one of the harshest regions around Han City. The northern plantation fields are notorious for their hardy conditions. He'd worked in those fields most of his life, that was what made him tough. If there was anyone who would have chosen to jump the Ravine without a second thought, it should have been him. My story - or what I have told you of it so far - might make you think I was somehow uniquely pre-destined to perform great, heroic deeds. Yet this was not how I felt at the time.

Of course, I had nothing to lose if I fell to my death. I had lost what remained of my family after my father met his end. He had no living siblings to serve as my aunts or uncles. The same was true of my mother - and even if she still lived, she was no longer part of my life now. I had left my home behind, sold it away, cut all ties and pissed off my clan leader to boot.

There was nothing for me to go back to if I chose to pull out now. If I refused to jump this ravine I would be refused training - and then I would have no future, no home, no family, nothing. I would be forever tainted by the shame of turning away from the training ground, from the path of the soldier I had signed up for - society would shun me. What woman would chose a failed soldier as a mate, what employer would hire such a cowardly wretch? Add to that Chur'R-Fac's disdain - along with the influence she carried - and my outlook would be bleak.

On the other hand, if I failed to reach the other side and fell to my death, I would also be left with nothing - although granted, my existence in this world would be lost also. But dying would be a better option than leaving shamed and without any future, just because I didn't try.

That left the third, least likely outcome; that I jump the Ravine and make it. Then my path would be set, my future assured for the time being. It was the best of the three, the _only_ outcome worth aiming for. Refusing was not an option, so that left either death or success. It boiled down to those two, and those two only.

Out of those two, I would aim solely for success. This is the reason, I think, why the pledge left my mouth.

"Prepare yourself recruit," Nix called over to me, "but we don't have the whole day."

I did not keep Nix waiting. As I stepped forward from the group of recruits, every man in the 4th, 5th and 6th Training Lances looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and bemusement. Who was this 17-year old, to leap to his death at his age? Some of the older ones had no doubt mentally prepared themselves for death in the future and saw the younger chicks like me as naive - my volunteering to jump must have come as a shock to them.

Soon, I was directly facing the edge of the precipice. I let out a few breaths and flexed my limbs - the feeling of exhaustion from the run was still there, and I needed to make sure I was fully recharged to make the jump.

Nix allowed me a few minutes to do this. He might have loved tormenting recruits, but he wasn't stupid. He knew the first to jump the Ravine would need some time to prepare, after such a long run. Forcing an exhausted man who had no energy left to jump would have been a death sentence. Our instructors wanted to reshape our lives - for that they needed us _alive_.

Well, most of us anyway. I already had a feeling that forcing us across this chasm served a very specific purpose - but I forced that thought away as best I could.

The ravine itself was wider than I had initially assumed - certainly more than three metres across. Four or five maybe, six, perhaps even seven. It was possible for a T'Vaoan to jump that distance, but it wasn't something I could just leap into. It would require a good running start, careful timing, good co-ordination...

"We're all waiting for you, recruit Trau." It was Major Krel who spoke this time. Take it from me - his voice and overall look was much more intimidating. I would take Nix over him any day. "Don't keep us here the full day."

I narrowed my eyes, focusing on the opposite ledge. Fortunately, the rock face and cliff edge in front of me seemed to be perfectly solid - there was no chance I would slip on loose rubble, or worse cause a rock slide on landing that would drag me into the gorge's depths. It was a smooth surface of rock though, with only a light covering of grass; so there was some chance of slipping if I landed. I would have to land on all fours, so I could get maximum grip.

I let out a breath. No turning back now. I would tarry no longer.

I walked many steps backward from my original position, making sure that I would be building up as much momentum as possible. Then, a few seconds after doing so, I broke into a run.

I built up my speed, increasing the velocity and kinetic energy levels behind my planned jump. The cliff-edge grew closer and closer.

If I jumped to soon, I would fall short. If I waited, I might just run straight off the edge into the maw of the Ravine. _Got to get this timing right..._

It was at the precise moment upon reaching the very edge of the precipice that I flexed my legs, coiled my muscles - and launched myself into the air.

Those few seconds while I was airborne were several heartbeats of pure terror. The last time in my life that I had felt this way had been as a six-year old hatchling, carelessly playing near a tram line just outside Ream with some local friends.

We had been tossing a wire fly-ring between us, when one child of our neighbours threw it too far in my direction. I had dived to catch the ring as it overshot me, and landed right onto the line.

As I landed onto the rails, grabbing the fly-ring just as it hit the ground, the rumble of an approaching tram shook the ground beneath me. I just barely got a look at the railcar speeding straight for me, before a violent force pulled me away and off the tram-line to safety, with just seconds to spare.

It had been my father who had saved me; I can never remember him being angrier than he was that day. My mother was home at that time as well - I got the full blast from her, too. Yet what I remember most about that childhood trauma was the immediate sense that my life was coming to an end. It was a terrifying feeling, like being struck by a bolt of lightning, a tiny dose of terror felt within a split-second. I naively hoped at that time that I would never feel it again.

That same rush of adrenaline-fuelled terror came to me as I leapt across that great chasm of oblivion and hurled myself through the air. I knew for certain that in that split-second, this was where I would die.

But as quickly as it came, it was gone - replaced by the bone-cracking impact of my body with the opposite ledge.

I landed on the grassy cliff edge feet first - but I didn't get my timing, balance or posture right as the rest of my body arrived. As a result, it was a messy landing.

I tumbled across the grass, my legs, torso and left arm painfully striking the ground. Eventually I came to a rest face-down just beyond the rocky surface of the cliff edge on a dirt patch, just short of a spiny har-vak bush. I didn't end up in it, thank Chu'ot. If I had, it would have added even further to the pain I already felt from landing.

I let out a pained breath, blowing away the dirt beneath my face. I fought back the pain as I began to check that my arms and legs could still move.

I was lucky; none of the bones in my limbs were broken. Beneath my skinsuit I could feel the pain of a deep graze on my left-leg - that would need attention, as would the smaller cuts and bruises that I had no doubt received.

However, the skinsuit was clearly designed to manage wounds like these, as the blood was contained, appearing as a purple stain on the left-leg. In time, the blood would coagulate under the suit and by the time I arrived back at the training ground, a professional healer would be able to tend to it.

For now though, I would have to deal with this damn wound - and that meant standing, walking _and_ running on it. _Terrific._

I grunted with frustration. First, I had to know if I could stand. I gingerly moved my legs, raised myself on my hands and allowed my feet to find the ground.

Sure enough, I was able to stand - the pain was still there, but moving my limbs dulled it somewhat. My body was recovering from the rough landing, as it should.

It was then that I heard an odd sound on the wind, as it whistled across the ravine.

Was it screeching? Shouting? No...cheering...from the other side of the chasm, from where I'd taken off.

Yes...it was from that direction...the others were cheering me!

The chorus of cheering quickly grew louder from the other side of the Ravine - the side I had jumped from. I turned my head to see my fellow recruits whooping and hollering, waving their arms and jumping up and down like madmen. It didn't take long for the Majors to silence them - but the impact my first leap had on the groups as a whole was very clear.

Within a second, Par stepped forward and requested permission to volunteer next.

"Granted," Nix replied. I could see him grinning - but this was not the grin of twisted pleasure that appeared on his face whenever he had us at his mercy.

No, this grin was different. It was a grin of pride. For the first time, we had his respect. He followed it up with a bellow of encouragement.

"Follow your fellow to glory, recruit!"

Par also made sure that he took his time, and gave himself a long running start. My species are adept jumpers - the result of our light skeletal structure and avian ancestry. Even a Ruuhtian might have been able to jump this distance with enough physical training. We T'Vaoans are the best natural jumpers of all - but even we require training to get it absolutely right.

Today, we were proving our abilities one by one. Par gave himself a healthy bit of distance between his position and the cliff edge before he broke into a full run.

Only when he was at the very edge did he make the jump, spreading his arms and feathers wide like our ancestors would have done, eons ago. Those ancestors had been capable of limited flight - this ability had gradually vanished as my race evolved, but traces of it are more prominent in T'Vaoans today.

That evolutionary heritage had helped me make the jump - and it would help Par too. He cleared the distance in no-time, sailing towards the opposite ledge.

But he just missed it, desperately clawing at the side of the cliff for purchase.

Fortunately, he was able to grab on to a thick root that jutted from a crack in the rock face. He then clawed his way up that root, scaling the face of the cliff until he was right near the edge.

At the sight of my bunk-neighbour's near demise, I had instinctively rushed to the edge of the cliff. Now, I was crouched over the edge, stretching my hand out.

"Take my hand" I told him, reaching out as he got closer to me. But Par was far too stubborn for that.

"I don't need your hand," he grunted, hauling himself over the edge and onto the grassy rock-ground of the ledge.

He then crawled as far as he could from the maw of the Ravine, making sure he was a safe distance away. It wouldn't have done to have made that jump only to accidentally fall into the chasm.

Finally, he brought himself to stand, his eyes meeting mine.

"But thanks for offering anyway."

I found myself snorting in response.

"You might need it one day."

An amused little smirk appeared on his face.

"Not today."

Perhaps he was beginning to tolerate me, after all. But we didn't have much time to dwell on our still-budding comradeship - I could hear shouts of encouragement as more of our fellow recruits began to jump the ravine.

We both made sure we cleared the cliff-edge, giving our brothers plenty of space to land - before finding an out-of-the-way spot where we could watch them follow us in passing this brutal test of will.

Two older recruits in their mid to late-twenties from the 6th Training Lance were the next to make it; though they weren't from our Lance, we cheered them when they joined us. Anyone who could make that jump after such a long run was deserving of respect, regardless of their unit.

After they landed they joined Par and I at our spectators' spot, where we kept our eyes peeled for the next recruit to jump.

It was Par who spotted him.

"That fool again? Didn't think he'd be up for it."

I also immediately recognised that same loose-lipped recruit who'd been stupid enough to backtalk Nix when we had risen this morning; a sin that had triggered the Major's chilling lecture on the humans' elite Helljumpers.

He had volunteered himself, apparently - I didn't see him being directly ordered to jump. Clearly, he was looking redeem himself.

"I'm not so surprised," I countered. "He must have some guts to talk out of turn."

"Or no brains," Par retorted, "and a loose tongue."

"Still looks like he has the guts to make up for both, though..." I murmured quietly, not willing to give up my position but not wanting to draw out our argument..

The loose-tongue made sure to take his time and give himself a long-running start, too. He'd clearly been watching and learning.

I was more willing to give the man credit than Par was - he'd obviously realised he'd made a mistake earlier and was willing to risk his life to make up for it. If he'd been completely gutless, he would have waited until he was _ordered_ to jump.

Besides, I couldn't really judge - not after daydreaming in front of Major Nix while being sorted into our lances, the day we'd arrived. I still hadn't gotten over that, annoyingly enough.

The loose-tongue built his momentum as much as he could - his running start was longer than mine and Par's - before he launched himself over the chasm.

He made it - just about. His feet fell short of the ledge but he managed to grasp the edge of the cliff with his talons. Now, he was dangling over the precipice, yelling in panic.

He might well have fallen then. I would not be in the least bit surprised if the Major had expected him to. But I would steer my fellow recruit's fate in a different course.

I got to my feet, dashing towards the dangling recruit, even as the pain from my earlier wound still throbbed. I thought Par would immediately get up and follow - but when I turned my head I could see he was still sitting and down and watching.

"Where are you going?" His tone was genuinely confused.

"Where do you think?" I jerked my head towards our dangling comrade.

"Him?" Par was bemused. His eyes said it all - _what is that fool worth?_

"Yes, him!"

I was exasperated by Par's indifference. That recruit might have nearly gotten us all collectively beaten earlier - but he'd made an effort to prove himself worthy. That had to count for something. True, he'd slipped and was now on the edge of death; but that was his own bad luck, nothing more.

I decided to go ahead with or without Par's help. He could give me flak for it later, I didn't care. Right now, a comrade's life was at stake.

I dashed over to the young man, still clinging on to the rock for dear life. I crouched as close as I could - I was wary of being dragged over the edge and falling myself. I reached out with my right hand, still doing my best to ignore the pain in my leg as I leaned over.

"Grab on!" I wasn't the strongest in my Lance - certainly not as strong as Par. But still I had to try.

The loose-tongue took hold of my arm with his left hand, and as I pulled he tried to haul himself up with his right.

But it still wasn't enough. He was nowhere near a good climber as Par, and he kept slipping every time he tried to bring himself up. Meanwhile, my strength was beginning to give out. It wouldn't be long before he slipped again, for the last time, and dragged us both down into this damned chasm.

But fate was kind to both of us today. To my shock, it came to us in the form of Par, along with one of those two older recruits from 6th Lance.

Par offered his hand to the loose-tongue, just as I had.

"Take it," he demanded, "if you want to live."

The loose-tongue was confused, glancing to his left. Wasn't his left hand already grasping my arm?

Par's slim patience quickly ran out.

"Your _other_ hand, _fool!_ " He snarled.

The loose-tongue did not hesitate. Neither did Par. The moment Par had the youth's right arm in his grip, he began to haul him up, together with the recruit from 6th Lance. I redoubled my efforts and together, we soon had the loose-tongue on solid ground, gasping and profusely offering thanks.

"Don't thank us yet," Par grunted, skulking off back to the spectator's spot. That other man from 6th Lance also walked away, back to his comrade.

I looked back across the Ravine. I honestly didn't know what our superiors' reaction would be. We were expected to live and train as a unit, as brothers to one another. Yet as warriors of the Covenant there would be little place for mercy or sentiment, especially in this war. I was relieved to see Nix giving an approving nod when I looked. The other recruits stood there, transfixed at the rescue they had just witnessed.

"Thank you," the loose-tongue said for what had to be the tenth time. "I owe you my life."

"Say no more about it," I insisted. "We might be doing that a whole lot more."

The loose-tongue gave in after that. I decided now was the time to connect properly.

"I didn't get your name."

"Vek Ton. Han City."

His family were most likely immigrants to Han from another clan, tenants of the Fac clan's territory. That made them fairly low-ranking. But as I've said before, I'm not one to really care about all that.

"Trau. Also of Han City."

I decided not to add about being from the Ream wetlands. Han was technically my birthplace after all. Again, clan names no longer mattered here, so for the first time I decided to omit mine. Besides the fact I didn't care about our clans, titles and statuses, I knew the Sangheili didn't either. It was a good idea to get used to using our first names only before we fell under their command - something I was still dreading about.

I helped the loose-tongue - Vek - to his feet. He needed to get used to that new rule too.

"Don't bother with your clan name next time you introduce yourself."

Vek nodded. On the other side of the gorge, another recruit prepared to jump.

This time, the outcome was very different.

The man did look physically fit - even more so than Par did. In fact, he looked exactly like someone you would expect to make the distance. Vek and I cleared the ledge, making way for what we were sure would be a successful landing.

However, this recruit was overconfident. He didn't give himself enough time to prepare, nor did he make his starting sprint long enough. Clearly, he believed making it to the other side was a done deal for him. He jumped way short of the edge, instead of at the last inch like I'd done.

As a result, he fell short of the mark.

I heard him give out a cry of sheer terror as he grasped at the rock face, trying to find purchase on one of the vines. But he hadn't flown far enough and was nowhere near any of the good hand holds closer to where Vek had landed. He slid off, falling straight down into the depths of the chasm, screaming for his life.

It was a good ten seconds or more before the screaming stopped - it ended with a loud, sickening crunch, the sound of shattering bone and crushed flesh. That was when we knew he reached the bottom of the ravine.

We all stood in silence. That man had not been from my lance - I hadn't known him at all. So perhaps I didn't feel the loss so much as those in his lance did.

Nevertheless, I has just seen death - sudden, swift death, right before my eyes. The death of a fellow recruit, a fellow soldier. A comrade.

It was a new feeling, seeing a death for the first time. When my father died, I had been struck with grief - but I had received news of it from a distance, so I didn't suffer the sight of his actual death. When my grandmother passed away, it had been completely natural; I had grieved, yes - but that late in her years it was to be expected.

Here I had seen a young man, not much older than me, die a horrific death before my eyes well before his time. He had been fitter and healthier than me - as I said, he was someone who you would have expected to have aced that jump.

Now I knew for sure the other purpose of this exercise. Our instructors did not expect us all to jump this ravine and live. We were being screened, our ranks weeded out and narrowed down.

We were being introduced to death, how it could come to any soldier without warning; learning that from this point on, death and loss would become a normal, regular companions.

This was a day not all of us would survive. It would not be our last such day in the army. Better we get used to it now, than later. Such was the way of our training.

The day went on. Others would make the jump and live - but there were still a few who failed and fell. Some were too nervous to know what to do. There was one youth of about twenty, shaking with fear and fatalism, who simply chanced a jump. He didn't even make it half-way.

There were others who were too cocky to prepare themselves better - like that first man to die - and of course, there were others who were just plain unlucky.

The latter group was the most common. I saw one who looked like he would make it - his feet landed solidly on the edge of the cliff, and his comrades ran forth to greet him.

However, he landed on a different part of the cliff edge from me. Here the edge was made up of loose rocks and earth. This all gave way from the young man's impact, taking the unfortunate recruit with it. He fell before any of his comrades could grab his hand, caught up in a great rock slide that swept him into the chasm, howling with terror.

I heard the impact of the rock slide below, together with the man's body. He was the last to die that day.

The final three recruits made the jump, before Nix and Krel joined us. They both made their jumps perfectly - such an action was second-nature to them. Once they reached us, they marshalled us all into our respective lances.

A total of seven recruits died crossing the Ravine that day. My lance had done better than the others - we had not suffered a single fatality, though Chu'ot alone knows why. The importance of luck cannot be overestimated in the game of survival.

Still, to have seen those people die...people you had seen living, breathing, talking, bantering with their friends or even people who had stood beside you just moments ago...that was a harsh new experience. That day at the ravine was the first time I had truly witnessed such death. Not the deaths of wild game my father and I had hunted when I was younger. That seemed trivial now.

I had seen _people_ die. Strangers, yes. But that didn't change the fact I wasn't going back to the training grounds unscathed. None of us would this day.

Major Nix had a talent for knowing our thoughts. He was quick to address us.

"Those that stand here today," he declared, making a sweeping gesture to us all, "are survivors. You have passed the first test. You have survived where others have not. You survived because you had strength of mind and body. As for those that did not have both..." he gestured to the chasm behind us, "...the Ravine has seen to them."

I grimaced. Nix sure had a way with words...and sure enough, I had been right about the purpose of this exercise. We had just been weeded out, probably not for the first time. How many more would die, in training alone, never mind the combat that would follow?

"I know the feeling," Nix continued. "I've felt it many times before. You will feel it too, hundreds of times after this day. You might as well get used to it now. Brave men died today. Honour their sacrifice by pushing on - by completing your training. You owe it to them, having survived a test they failed."

He then nodded to Krel. The larger Major took in a breath before barking out his orders once more.

" _All Lances form up! We march back to the grounds!"_

* * *

The run back to the Vara training grounds was uneventful. We took the route south along the Eastern coast of the Ha'chut peninsula, back towards our base of training at the base of the arrowhead of Ha'chut.

Here the land was much less developed, much more remote. There was little sign of civilisation other than the odd rustic farmhouse or hunter's lodge in the woods. As we passed the shining waters of the coast, now glistening in the early afternoon sun, I saw a couple of isolated fishing villages. Their harbours were ringed with low sea walls, packed with clustered boats. The smells of salt and smoked fish wafted over our group as we jogged past.

I saw the boats as they plied the coastal waters, cruising in and out of the harbour mouths or floating in small clusters in the sun-sparkling water. Some of them were modern designs, floating quietly above the water on anti-gravity drives - yet others chugged along on older, more primitive engines, or even glided along on copper-red sails.

On the rocky cliffs that overlooked the villages, I could see a noisy colony of Nav-Yar - large flightless seabirds that are a common sight on Eayn's coasts. They are roughly torpedo shaped, with stubby wing-limbs and long legs with webbed feet. The head of a Nav-Yar bears some resemblance to a Ruuhtian head, minus the brain-capacity - they share the same genetic ancestry as Kig-Yar. Their bodies are coated in water-proof feathers, with a layer of blubber beneath.

On land they are cumbersome, crudely hopping or dragging themselves around. In the water however, they are beautifully adapted. I saw them moving like swift darts beneath the waves, leaping in and out of the water as they hunted schooling fish and molluscs; they are truly remarkable animals. They evolved from the same genetic ancestor as Kig-Yar - scavenging birds that plied the plains of Eayn's ancient supercontinent, which split into the two that dominate our homeworld today.

Once the continent split, our ancestors went different ways. Many spread to different parts of the world, gradually shedding their flight, developing tools and sentience. The ancestors of the Nav-Yar also shed their flight, but focused only on reaching the coasts and taking to the seas, where they became the perfect marine predators they are today. They spend much of their lives at sea, roosting in the open ocean and only returning to land to mate, nest and raise their young. I knew that now was the nesting season, hence their presence on these rocks.

It was surreal observing them - these creatures were of our blood, they were _us_ , in spite of being animals. In our ancient religions, they were held as sacred - hunting them was punishable by death in times past. Some of the old shrines and temples dedicated to Chu'ot were deliberately positioned near Nav-Yar nesting grounds, and kept them close as sacred guardians.

One such small shrine was indeed here, right on the cusp of the headland. Cylindrical, with a spherical, painted domed roof crowned with stone rings, imitating the Great Mother Planet. Incense smoke wafted from a small brazier at the entrance - the people here still observed the old traditions. Even after centuries of belonging to the Covenant, worship of Chu'ot still continued openly in places. The Prophets were never able to eliminate it - they had little time or care to do so.

Alas, that indifference did not apply to the Nav-Yar. The Prophets had not eliminated our traditions - but they had managed to erode them. The ban on Nav-Yar hunting was lifted many centuries ago, after the War of the Asteroids. Our merchants soon found that their rich meat, feathers and oil were tradable resources, prized by the economy of the ever-growing Covenant. Nav-Yar hunting soon became a lucrative industry, and our people happily set aside tradition in favour of profit.

Parties went to the coasts and crews of men camped on their breeding islands throughout every breeding season - all for the sole purpose of hunting Nav-Yar. Flightless and cumbersome, they were easy prey on land; hundreds were killed en masse, boiled in cauldrons, and then skinned for their feathers and blubber, which was also boiled down for oil. The killing was so intense that corpses were used to keep the plasma fires burning - with or without the feathers still on them.

The soft down feathers beneath the main waterproof coat were used to fill the gilded pillows in the mansions of the Kig-Yar rich (Chur'R-Fac, amongst others, had countless examples in her parlours), the great San 'Shyuum apartments of High Charity, or in the keeps of Sangheili nobles. The oil was used as a machine lubricant, and also for lamps used in the Prophets' numerous ceremonies.

Just another example of how our worlds nobly provided for our Covenant of believers. Not that I could do anything about it, of course.

This Nav-Yar colony was now a rare sight - the species was classed as endangered and hunting limits were being slowly introduced. The people here were more traditional however - I suspect they still refused to hunt our genetic relatives.

Soon, I found myself wandering from the trauma of the day's events for a moment, taken in by the idyllic view. This scene - the villages, the sea, the boats, the Nav-Yar colony, the beautiful Shrine - would have made for a fine painting, like the ancient art prints from the seafaring age. Of course, those fishermen would have had to worry a lot more about piracy back then.

But I didn't have much more time to enjoy all that scenery. We ran on, leaving the beautiful seaside villages behind us, the cries of the Nav-Yar echoing away.

Soon, an old enemy returned to plague us - the dust. As I said, the eastern half of Ha'chut was much less developed - it was all dirt roads from here on in. As usual, the dirt turned to dust in the sun, the fine grains kicked up by the heels of running men, choking throats and stinging eyes. We endured that all the way back to Vara.

But whereas before it would have drawn grumblings and griping, and the odd exclamation of profanity, we were now all silent. After seeing comrades die screaming before our eyes, simple privations didn't seem to matter. We were just too numbed by what we had witnessed.

Slowly but surely, we were becoming soldiers. Not hardened veterans by any means - but we were all beginning to understand what being a soldier meant.

That, as I said, was the point of jumping the Ravine.

We kept running until we reached Vara in the early afternoon. No complaints, no incidents - no-one even fell over this time. We were learning quickly, that was for sure.

By the time we had all gathered in the main courtyard after filing through the southern entrance, we were all exhausted. Thus it was easy for us to remain silent, stood at attention.

Champion Xen was there to great his returning recruits. I saw Nix and Krel march up to him, both saluting. A brief conversation followed, before Xen gave a satisfied nod. Then he addressed us.

"Recruits of Training Lances Four through Six - you have survived your first trial. There will be many more to follow, and you must meet them all as you did today - with conviction, courage and force of will. Do not allow yourself complacency. Rest this evening, but know..."

Soon after the Champion spoke the word 'rest', I found my mind wandering away again. I felt the pain in my leg as the injury throbbed back up; I grimaced once more, having ignored it for so long. I just hope it wasn't infected...

I vaguely heard the Champion speaking in my direction - but I thought nothing of it. Maybe I'd imagined it. I didn't even register the glances of Par and Vek, who were stood either side of me. All I could think of was of the good shower and rest that would come soon...

 _"Recruit Trau!"_

 _Aw hell...not again..._

It was Major Krel who had screamed at me, his teeth bared in anger. He brandished a bu-vao stave menacingly as he advanced. As a torrent of curses erupted in my mind, I prayed that this was a dream I would soon wake up from - or failing that, that the ground would swallow me up and protect me lovingly from that bloody stave.

Krel did not let up.

"Our Champion was addressing _you_ , recruit," he snarled, "who do you think you are to _ignore_ his summons?!"

I stood up straight, unable to find my voice. It was probably for the best - whatever I said could only provoke the Major even further. As I said, he wasn't someone you really wanted to confront. I knew that a beating was almost certain.

But Champion Xen had other ideas. He held up a talon, stopping Krel in his tracks.

"These men have been running for hours, Major - and as I was about to say to this recruit, he bears a wound."

He then marched straight up to me, stopping at eye-level. His half-burnt face was inches from mine - I almost thought I could smell the burnt flesh, the crisped feathers. His right eyeball, located on the burnt side, peeked out from a ruined socket - it was a miracle he even still had that eye. Unlike the Sangheili, my people are not averse to medical treatment - but the reconstructive surgery must have been extensive. I still had no idea what could have caused such injuries.

Xen's war-torn gaze bore straight into mine, even as I tried to stand firm.

"Am I not correct, Recruit..." he paused, as if trying to remember my name - I knew he was subtly asking me a question.

"Trau." I replied instantly, not wanting to be caught out. "Trau Fac." In my haste, I forgot about the redundancy of our clan names.

But the Campmaster let it slide. If anything, he seemed curious.

"Trau..." he recited my name wistfully. His thoughts seemed to be drifting, too. Finally, he snapped out of it, turning to a nearby subordinate. "Minor, escort this recruit to the medical centre. Majors, you know what to do."

Xen nodded to his underlings, before marching off. The Minor he had summoned strode up, taking me by the arm.

"Follow me, airhead," he ordered briskly, pointing me in the direction of the med centre. Behind me, Krel and Nix marshalled the lances, their shouts echoing in the wind.

I was lead to the Northern entrance, steadied by the Minor. I was just glad he was here, in spite of being one of our tormentors. My leg was beginning to swell and I wouldn't have liked walking the final distance to the local healer.

At the Northern gatehouse there was a post stern gate carved into the arch interior that I hadn't seem before - it must have passed me by in the early morning darkness, when we had left through this entrance. The Minor produced an electronic key, unlocked the door, and lead me inside.

We entered a short winding corridor, lit by plasma torches. The walls were formed of ancient stones, and just as the door closed behind us, a haggard old voice echoed down the hall.

"Brought another one, have you?"

"Injured leg," the Minor grunted. "Shouldn't be too hard for _you_ , Gakh."

"Then don't dawdle," the voice snapped. "Bring him down."

The Minor muttered something obscene under his breath, and then led me down the corridor. This healer obviously didn't like being kept waiting. The voice's accent was off, though - it didn't sound T'Vaoan. Our kind trained separately from all others - but maybe that didn't apply to healers.

The corridor opened into a vast, circular room. I could see healing berths lined along one side, along with all the accompanying instruments. On the other side was a set of diagonal framed windows, which spilled sunlight into the whole space. There were also several bookshelves, with some of the tomes looking as if they dated back centuries. Tapestries depicting ancient gladiator fights and ocean voyages lined the walls.

In the centre of the room stood an oval-shaped table, lined with medical instruments. In a solitary seat was a grizzled, grouchy-looking elder - to my surprise I immediately saw that he was Ruuhtian, his yellow flesh shining in the sunlight. Clearly, the T'Vaoan Reformation allowed for some loopholes. He regarded me with his old grey eyes, peering out of their rough sockets.

"So, a bad leg. Got that at the Ravine, did you?"

I nodded.

"Be thankful it's just your leg. Could have been your life instead." After the healer - Gakh - gave his needless reminder, he gestured to the Minor. "Lay him down."

The Minor lead me to one of the berths, gently guiding me onto the soft bedding. Gakh came to my side with a tray of medical tools. I grimaced with nausea as I noted that some of them were razor sharp blades, designed to saw through bone. Alongside them a plethora of syringes, probes, braces - the whole thing looked more like a tool-kit than a set of medical supplies.

My ill-feeling must have shown, because Gakh cackled at my expense soon after probing my leg with a hand-held medical scanner.

"Don't worry - I don't think I'll need to do any amputations today. I've done that before, with other survivors of the Ravine. They made it, but paid with a limb...or two. Heh," the old man chuckled and coughed as he turned back to his tray. "Fine warriors, they were. The survived the Ravine, only to be rendered unfit for further training and service. Really sad, for all of them - but you won't be such a case. Something else you should be thankful for, eh?"

I only nodded and grunted. I really couldn't find words in response. To put myself in the shoes of those men; they must have thought they were destined for great things, only to be rendered invalids for the rest of their lives after passing the first hurdle. Gakh was right - I had much to be thankful for.

He turned to the Minor.

"I'm sure this young man can find his own way back to his block when I'm done with him. Go - the Majors will have need of you."

The Minor skulked out of the medical bay, muttering to himself. The grizzled healer turned back to me, producing a booster syringe.

"Disinfectant antiseptic," he explained. "This should get rid of any pathogens that might have gotten into that leg of yours - and keep any out for a few hours."

Without warning, he plunged the syringe into the injured part of my limb. I clenched my teeth at the stinging pain.

"So, Trau Fac," Gakh stated matter-of-factly.

"I didn't tell you my name," I was just able to squeak the words out over the pain.

"You didn't need to," he grunted. "The scanner identified you from your skinsuit data chip." He put a compress on my leg, preventing it from bleeding further as he continued to dress it. "You're not the first of your family I've patched up."

My eyes widened, but before I could reply Gakh spoke over me.

"I was there, you know," he continued. "On Doisac, all those years ago, in the last Age of Doubt. It was during the siege of one of the last Jiralhanae strongholds. The Citadel of Hephestus, as I recall."

I blinked upon hearing the name of that battle - one I had heard before during my father's tales. The Siege of the Citadel of Hephestus, a particularly ruthless Jiralhanae High Chieftain, was one of the final and most bloodiest engagements of the whole War of Jiralhanae Conversion - perhaps more accurately called their Subjugation, shortly after the Missionary Ships discovered Doisac.

Most of the packs and tribes, already weakened from bombing each other to near-oblivion and losing their once technologically advanced status as a result, elected to join the Covenant. Others, however, clung to their old ways and resisted.

Thus it was in Hephestus' stronghold that his pack, one of the most powerful of their Alpha Tribes, continued to hold out. Due to the presence of a Forerunner Artefact directly under the mighty fortress-citadel, glassing the whole thing from orbit was out of the question. So a ground assault was mounted; my father was one of thousands of Covenant troops involved in that battle.

He had been roughly eighteen or nineteen cycles of age at the time - a young soldier in his first campaign. He had survived when many others hadn't - the legion he was assigned to suffered a casualty rate of over 50%. Perhaps that was why he didn't like to go into too much detail, whenever he had mentioned that battle to me.

"It was a night attack," the healer droned on, as he patched me up. "One of many that evening. The army's mission was simple. Take the big hills surrounding the Citadel. Fur-faces lose the high ground, we get a full view of their city and the whole place is in the sights of our artillery. Our legion got assigned the largest hill right in the middle. They called it Hill 128."

He paused, letting out a cough. I was just grateful he kept it well away from my wound.

"The plan was for the four-jaws and gas suckers to lead a straight forward assault on the central line. They were happy to do it, but it was just a distraction. Not that they'd admit it. Our kind and a few four-jaw officers - we were to go for the left flank and cut the fur-face lines open while they faced the four-jaws. Your old man was part of it. One of four T'Voan lances that day. The rest were my kind. I was the main field medic for that assault."

"What happened?" I finally got a chance to get a word in edgeways.

"It went wrong. The fur-faces have puffed heads and small minds, true - but they aren't stupid. They spotted us as we came around them. Some fool trod on a landmine as we scaled the left-hand slope - that was what alerted them."

I knew about that part. From what my father had said, he'd been pretty close to the mine victim during training. To lose a friend that way at eighteen...

"From then on it started to go to shit. The Major hand-picked for command of that assault's T'Voan element got on the wrong side of one of their damn firebombs. Guys were falling left and right - I remember all those damn spikes striking my shield, cutting us all down. There was spiker fire, mortar fire, rocket fire, grenades, you name it. We all thought we'd blown it."

I listened, my concentration not slipping for a moment. Even the pain seemed to vanish into the background.

"They say a young minor lead the charge, in the face of all those red hot spikes. He didn't shout, he didn't make a speech or any of that...he just ran straight into it. Everyone else - Kig-Yar, Sangheili, everyone - decided 'if he can do it, I can.'"

 _Just like the Ravine today,_ I thought. I hadn't shown any leadership - the others just saw me jump and decided to try themselves.

"So they all followed him. A lot of us got cut down and the fight lasted on until daybreak - but we drove them off that hill. The fur-faces got pasted, and we met up with the four-jaw assault force at the top of that mountain. The other hills fell, the citadel fell with it, Hephestus got overthrown by his brother, who joined our Covenant; you know all the rest."

He chuckled.

"That crazy young fool paid a lot for his trouble though. I had to pull spikes out of his backside after he got too close to one of their grenades right at the end, after storming through four mortar nests. I patched him up though. Fine young man - name was Mal, I recall. He did the Fac clan proud."

I lay there, stunned.

"He never told me..." my voice was a near-whisper. "I knew he was on Doisac...I knew about Hill 128...but he never said anything about rallying his unit. He never took credit for anything like that."

"No, he didn't at the time, either." Gakh chuckled once more. "Humble sort, he was. The Major who got burned survived to credit him, though. I patched that one up too. Your old man got the Hero's Gauntlets for that stunt of his."

I still remember those gauntlets, in my father's cabinet of decorations at home. Then a thought came to me. I felt a small smile purse my lips.

"That burnt Major - it wouldn't have been a Major Xen, would it?"

Gakh laughed. "His burns were a dead giveaway weren't they? Well, I made sure he lived that day - but I've never claimed to be a miracle worker. A fur-face fire grenade is a nasty piece of work. Not as bad as some of the flame weapons I've seen the humans use, though..." he shuddered. "They have stuff which sticks to you, then burns your flesh straight off your bones in seconds. You'll see soon enough."

I felt my guts stir - sooner or later, I'd have to face the humans. From what I was hearing so far, they were a lot more dangerous than the news made them out to be. I tried to distract myself with another question.

"You heard about my father, then?"

He set down his tools for a moment.

"We all did, we of his old unit. You should have seen Champion Xen. Nix, too. We all thought he'd make it to retirement. Harvest claimed many lives - we just never thought one of those would be a certain Mal Fac."

He sighed again, picking up another sealant - the last he needed to apply.

"Do us all a favour, young Trau - make him proud. Our Champion expects nothing less from the son of Mal. Nix owes your old man his life."

I blinked - no wonder the Major had been so reluctant to take me on. Before I could pry further however, Healer Gakh ushered me off the berth and out of his med bay.

"You should be able to walk on that normally now - but don't go tearing that bandage off until after three days. The sealant I've applied under it needs time to work. Got it? Good. Now scram."

I did so, heading back down the hallway. The pain in my leg was gone, but the weight of expectation placed on me, that I had placed on myself - it still remained on my shoulders like an overloaded pack.

Still, I had survived the first hurdle. _Now_ , I thought as I stepped back into the sunlight, _to survive the others._

 **A/N: Sorry this took nearly a year guys. I'm currently working on a dissertation through the summer - we'll have to clear that before I can even think about submitting anything else, for this story or others. But I will post when I can - that's all I can promise. Hope this chapter satisfies you!**


	7. I: Chapter 7 - Repetition

**Chapter Seven: Repetition**

 **16th June, 2533 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Ninth Age of Reclamation, 8th Solar Cycle (Covenant Calendar)**

 **Eayn, Y'Deio System**

The days dragged on, and we did our best to drag ourselves along with them.

I'm not going to give you a full account of every day of my training on Eayn. This is partially because it would bore any reader - training itself is constant repetition, so when you do it often enough it becomes dull to everyone involved, the participant included.

That brings me to the other reason why I don't want to spend ages discussing my time in Vara. After a while, the constant repetition of physical exercises - running short and long-distances, jumping, moving as a lance and separate files - all just passed me by as a blur, so quite frankly I probably couldn't recount every detail of each training day.

Other than being exhausted shitless at the end of each day, of course - and the abuse our instructors eagerly meted out on all of us, at every opportunity.

What I can say is that the days following the jump over the Ravine were really more of the same - except without the Ravine. As I said, the core of training is repetition, repetition and more repetition. Physical conditioning is paramount to the training of any soldier; once you can run over long distances – say, ten or fifteen miles a day – without too much trouble, then you know the conditioning is taking effect and you can face greater challenges.

I could feel that such exercise was becoming easier – that had to be a good sign. For T'Vaoan soldiers, the conditioning is far more intense than other soldiers born of Chu'ot. It has to be – speed and agility are my kind's greatest strength in battle. We had to run well to survive, put simply.

After three weeks, we had gained that skill through constant, repetitive exercise every day. We could now run over long-distances, jump with ease and most importantly, run in co-ordination on a file, lance and even unit level.

My body – our bodies – became more attuned to such runs over time. Consequently, I also found they took punishment much better.

As the healer Gakh promised, my leg and light wounds healed in just over three days. Once they did, Gakh was able to remove the dressing as he prescribed. It felt good to get back to normal quickly.

Unfortunately, 'getting back to normal' also meant more running and jumping – and the sick, pathological creativity of our instructors.

Those three weeks were hell. Yet we all suffered the same way we did on the first run and leap – together.

We still trained as three lances – the 4th, 5th and 6th Training Lances - and only among those stationed in the East Barracks of the Vara Grounds, including our attached Majors. We seldom interacted with the recruits and trainers of the West Barracks – if anything, something of a rivalry had developed between the 'Westings' and 'Eastings' as we called each other. There is no greater stimulant for any soldier than rivalry between different groups of soldiers.

That - and having superiors whom you don't want to cross.

Most times Nix would take my lance alone out on long runs - but on special occasions all the lances of East Barracks would go, along with Major Krel and also Major Fark, commander of the 6th Lance.

All three of them were people you knew better not to cross.

To ensure we were physically conditioned to the maximum, Nix, Krel and Fark took us every now and then to a few more of their 'favourite spots' in Ha'chut peninsular and the neighbouring mainland. All but one of these unique locations of natural beauty involved a run of miles, in both reaching them and getting back to Vara.

Furthermore, every one of them was just as gruelling and life-threatening as the Ha'chut Ravine had been. Sometimes even more so.

I've mentioned that much of that training was a blur. This was not the case for our superiors 'favourite spots'. Those places are seared into my memory - I don't like to talk about them either, for different reasons.

For example, there was the Var'ka'mar Swamp, located south of the training grounds at the foot of the hills and mountains that separated the Ha'chut peninsular from the mainland of Ah'lomet. The swamp was located in an inlet close to the coast in southern Ha'chut, and was overgrown with great vo-va trees, the roots of which can only grow underwater. On their branches hang thick, strong vines which can support a full grown Kig-Yar - for a few minutes at least.

The whole swamp was a stinking shit-hole, infested with biting insects and sucking worms. The waters at the foot of the vo-va trees were filled with wake-serpents - aquatic predators that love to snatch large prey in their coils, before constricting their victims and drowning them alive.

The one good thing about that day was that we got to fly to the swamp in Phantoms, saving us energy from running. Var'ka'mar was the one 'favourite spot' we didn't have to run to - but the amenities ended there.

The Majors dropped us in the canopy of the vo-va forest above that damn swamp from the dropships; they observed us from the safety of these craft throughout the whole exercise. They then forced all of us in the three lances to jump from tree-to-tree, leap from branch-to-branch and swing from vine-to-vine, until we found a way out of the swamp.

That was our main objective - no navigational aids, no maps, nothing. Just find your own way out of the marshes. That - and of course avoid falling into the basin of the vo-va swamp, where the murky depths and wake-serpents waited. Our jumping skills were tested to the maximum - we had to pass the test or die.

Not all of us succeeded. Another three of our brothers fell from the trees and met their ends in the dark waters of Var'ka'mar. As with the Ravine, we were being progressively weeded out.

I still remember damning Major Krel to every hell and torment in every afterlife I knew of, as he and several Minors cackled down at us from the open side-bay of a hovering Phantom, mocking us as we leapt, swung, stumbled, tottered and struggled through that stinking marsh below. They had a perfect view of our suffering from their dropship.

"You all think you're something?" Krel jeered, as I just managed to grasp on a vo-va branch, dangling for my life above the foul-smelling waters. "I did this in less than half-an-hour! How long have _you_ been in there?"

I fought back the urge to scream back in retort - I didn't put it past Krel to take offence and declare me a 'wash-out' in response by shooting me off the branch. I was already in enough trouble as it was - I could even see the tell-tale signs of wake-serpents as they circled hungrily in the basin below, eager to consume the foolish Kig-Yar just waiting to drop down to them.

The sight only amused Krel and his brothers-in-sadism even more. I could hear their demonic laughter above the hum of the Phantom's engines above, and the hissing and splashing of the wake-serpents below.

Krel was by far the most entertained.

"Half of you won't make it out!" He laughed out loud with glee, the _bastard_. It was deeply satisfying when I swung myself safely onto the branch, causing him and those Minors to shut up.

It was even more satisfying that the overwhelming majority of the recruits of the East Barracks made it out of that swamp in one piece. That didn't bring back the three lives we had lost, but perhaps it gave them some peace.

Another of the Majors' idyllic spots was a rocky hill located in the southern highlands of Ha'chut, whose name I've since forgotten. The Majors forced us to run up the hill, but first we were made to form up into standard files - four men per file.

My file included Par, Vek, myself and a recruit named Hoth - a native of Han City's eastern suburbs, about five or six years older than me. His feathers were lined with plasma scalding, which gave away his previous occupation - he told me that he had previously worked as a crewman on the mining vessels which plied the rings of Chu'ot for precious minerals.

A dangerous job, to be sure - but not as dangerous as what we soldiers had to face, even in training.

For this exercise was more than running up the slope. At the summit of the hill itself, the Majors - together with their subordinates - rolled great boulders down the slope, which we had to dodge as we advanced to the summit. The summit was filled with loose rock, giving our tormentors an ample supply of ammunition.

Not only were we expected to reach the top of the hill, we were also expected to maintain our unit cohesion and stay in our files - while dashing up the slope and dodging the boulders. We had to maintain our discipline under pressure, while staying alert and agile - just as we would have to when storming a human-held hill, while dodging their weapons-fire.

Needless to say, not all of us made it.

I still struggle to believe that Hoth was one of those who perished. He had survived hazardous mining operations out in the asteroids, which I knew often suffered from cave-ins and other accidents. He even told me he had survived the destruction of his ship from a collision with a rogue comet, which literally tore the miner in half.

Hoth had escaped the rapid decompression, donned a vacuum suit and together with other surviving crewmates, spent days in a lifeboat before being rescued. He was twenty years old at the time.

He had been lucky then. But his luck ran out that day on the hill, when a giant boulder tumbled straight to my file's position.

We had scattered, and I dove to the right just in time - but Hoth just wasn't fast enough. When I emerged from cover, all that remained of Hoth Tal was a purple smear on the hillside. The boulder had rolled right over him.

He had survived the vacuum of space for nothing.

Still, most of our number made it up that hill. Hoth was one of only four lives lost that day. The rest of us had passed that brutal test of cohesion, reflexes, agility and courage.

We would suffer casualties every time we visited our tormentors 'favourite spots' - there were many more than the three I have described. Yet everything the Majors did to us - no matter how brutal - was necessary in moulding us into hardened soldiers.

As I said, training is constant repetition - even in its most vile form.

After three weeks, we were hardened to death and loss, as expendable infantry are expected to be. After seeing someone like Hoth die - someone I had thought would go far - it just didn't affect me as much. Our losses would only go up once we reached the frontlines - we were only having light casualties inflicted on us right now, in order to give us a taste of what was to come.

All of those tests refined the skills we would need to survive the greater challenges ahead. Together with the constant running and regular exercise, our minds and bodies were well honed. As I said, we had learned a lot in those three weeks.

But you can see now why I don't look back on them too much.

* * *

When we rose on the first day following those three weeks of damnation, we all expected the worst. Every day we lived in fear that the Majors would want to show us another of their 'favourite spots'. Such occasions were 'special treats', they told us.

 _Bastards._

So we of the 4th Training Lance all shuddered when Major Nix made his morning announcement, after waking us up in the same violent, loving way he usually did.

"Today is a special treat, children!" He smiled at us with the most mocking version of a loving, parental smile that was possible. "Assemble in the courtyard!"

We all moved out of the dormitory, none of us disobeying an order or asking silly questions - not after all the trauma we suffered.

Even Vek kept quiet - which was quite a feat for him. He had a bad habit of opening his mouth at the worst possible moment - even after three weeks of brutal training. He was an odd one, to be sure - but together with Par, he was pretty close to me. Of course, it helped that our bunks were positioned quite close to one another.

As per usual, we assembled into the sandy courtyard, the main part of the grounds where we did most of our exercises outside of the cross-country runs. The dust got kicked up, as usual - but we had become accustomed to it.

Along with many other things.

Nevertheless, we were pretty surprised at what we saw in the courtyard of the Vara Grounds that day.

Nix, Krel and Fark all stood in front of us, as they were at the beginning of each day. The recruits of West Barracks were not present - they were on a cross-country run that day. Their Majors probably also had 'favourite spots' in the local area that they were keen to show them.

Champion Xen was present however, as were a cluster of Minors to act as assistants. That wasn't surprising - he did sometimes supervise our exercises. At Var'ka'mar, he had been one of those watching from the Phantoms - though unlike our Majors he had remained silent, showing no emotion as he had observed. If he was here though, that meant today had to be something big.

What was truly surprising, however was what was located in the middle of the courtyard.

A row of containers, coloured in the violets and purples of most technology in our Covenant's military, the metal shining in the early morning light. Within these containers I could see distinctive objects, some glowing green, others blue, and some with pink crystalline spikes.

 _Weapons_. Today, we would receive weapons training for the first time.

There was an even greater surprise. Floating lazily above the weapons station, occasionally adjusting the weaponry and checking for faults here and there, extracting, checking and replacing power cores or needle shards with their fine fluorescent tentacles glinting in the emerging sunlight, were two Huragok.

"Gas-bags, here?" Vek murmured. "How..."

Par elbowed him to shut up. Vek closed his mouth. He was learning. Slowly.

Nevertheless, he was right to wonder. It was very rare to see the other races of our Covenant in my species' home system. There would be the occasional missionary visit or Sangheili fleets visiting to extract tithes and fresh troops for the fleets and legions, or the odd merchant convoy, but most of the time High Charity was content to leave Y'Deio to its own devices.

You would certainly be lucky to see Huragok like this - among our kind and on our homeworld. The Prophets never allowed the floating engineers to be used too much by Kig-Yar. They might not have cared how much we actually believed in the Great Journey, or how much we still observed our old traditions - but they _did_ care about how much we were able to maintain and produce the technology they gave us, along with how much we knew about said technology.

The fact was that the San 'Shyuum never trusted us - even less so than the Sangheili did. To them, we were all potential pirates and traitors; thus every Huragok in Kig-Yar employ was a source of sensitive technology - or even just the _knowledge_ of such technology - that they didn't want in our hands.

This was especially true of slipspace drives and advanced weapons - the Prophets made sure we knew as little as possible about such tools. Yet they also knew we needed to use and maintain these tools in order to be of service to the Covenant.

Thus, the Prophets had no choice but to allow Huragok to work alongside us - though they permitted as few as possible to do so, under close supervision.

For example, as Huragok were used to maintain our slipspace drives, Unggoy Deacons were posted aboard every one of our vessels that travelled the slipstream in service of the Covenant. The Deacons were not primarily there for any spiritual reason, as was officially claimed - they were the only crewmembers of any Kig-Yar vessel permitted to communicate with Huragok aboard. Thus they served a major technological role and restricted our access to the engineers of our Covenant.

The same rules applied to the maintenance of our infantry's weaponry and equipment. Sure enough, I spotted the squat, wheezing form of an Unggoy Deacon, clad in glinting white armour and orange robes, sucking on his mask at intervals as he directed the two Huragok at the weapons station. His presence on the homeworld of my people was even more of a shock.

I heard Par sneer in disgust at the sight of the gas-sucker - like most of us, he had little love in his heart for Unggoy.

I didn't either - but Unggoy Deacons were the official representatives of a San 'Shyuum Ministry, one of the few important positions their kind could get in our Covenant, if they were educated enough.

This one had likely come from either the Ministry of Resolution or Preparation, which dealt with military forces and weapons production, respectively. Either way, he was the eyes and ears of the Prophets in the Vara Grounds - Unggoy or not, there would be consequences if any harm came to him.

I knew starship crews regularly ignored this rule - my mother talked of how she disregarded her Unggoy Deacon aboard her own vessel, whenever she was home. But we were not miles out in space, where the Deacon's authority would be eroded to the point where he might suffer an 'unfortunate' accident with an airlock.

Right now, our Deacon was signing away with his palms as he communicated with the two Huragok, no doubt making sure all of our weapons were ready for this exercise.

That was the main reason why he could come to no harm here, more than the trappings of his holy office - he was the only one in Vara who could communicate with those strange, floating beings. Our species was explicitly forbidden by the laws of the Covenant to commune with Huragok, or learn even a single glyph of their sign language.

As I said, the Prophets simply did not trust us with that knowledge. Only they, Sangheili engineers or select Unggoy like that Deacon were permitted to consort with Huragok. The word of the Prophets was law, as it always was in our blessed union.

So if the Deacon suffered an 'unfortunate accident' with, say, his methane suite or gas reserves during the night - we would lose our only link with the Huragok. We were just as dependent on that unusually smart Unggoy in the orange robes for our weapons as we were on the Huragok - an arrangement that fully suited the Prophets.

It was that kind of thing that caused real resentment towards the Unggoy among our kind. I didn't envy this one, stuck on the homeworld of the Kig-Yar. I could only imagine the abuse he received almost every day of his miserable life. He might even have welcomed having his methane poisoned, or his sealed chamber decompressed one night in his sleep.

The presence of the Deacon was not the only measure the powers-that-be had taken to keep the Huragok out of our hands. I noticed that both of the floating gas-bags were harnessed to distinctive metal casings - self-destruct harnesses. It was the same arrangement for any Huragok aboard our spacecraft.

If something _did_ happen to the Deacon, then I suspect they were set to auto-detonate, permanently ensuring that the Huragok did not fall into the irreverent, heretical hands of Kig-Yar filth.

Thus the will of the Prophets was enforced, even on this least faithful and most autonomous among the many worlds they ruled over.

I hadn't encountered this Unggoy or his Huragok charges around the Vara Grounds before - so today was obviously a day of introduction, a special day. Champion Xen confirmed this.

"Recruits of the Eastern Barracks - today is a milestone for all of you. You have been put through many tests of speed and strength - those that stand here today are those who were strong enough to survive. You have thus earned the right to continue on the path of the warrior. As such, you will take the next great step today - for you shall receive your first weapons. Today, you shall be granted access to the armoury of our Training Grounds for the first time."

He gestured to the weapons station - I saw that he was also subtly indicating to the Deacon that he wanted the Huragok to stop tinkering. The Unggoy took the hint, and signed for his charges to stop. They obeyed without question, withdrawing with subdued whistles.

"These weapons have been provided for your training and future use, through the generosity of the Prophets," Xen continued, keeping his voice neutral. "You shall treat their gifts with care and respect. To ensure this, those that maintain our holy technology shall oversee the...proceedings. Deacon Ribib shall explain, as representative of the holy offices of the Ministry of Resolution."

The Champion gave a curt gesture to the Deacon, a sharp flick of a talon. The Unggoy - Ribib - stepped forward, doing his best to avoid the dozens of narrowed Kig-Yar eyes that were focused on him. I even saw Major Krel spit on the ground at the sight of the gas-sucker.

As I said, I did not envy the creature.

He began his speech with more confidence than I would have imagined, to give him some credit. Yet I was even more surprised that he addressed us in near-perfect Ruuht'ka, the main language of Eayn's children - rather than the common Sangheili tongue, which served as the unifying language for our union. It would have been much simpler for him to use the latter.

Every Covenant citizen was required by law to learn the four-jaw language - like all common citizens I was introduced to it at early childhood and rehearsed it every day at school. My father made sure I rehearsed it extra-hard - it was the single most useful language out there. If I wanted to survive in the Covenant, I had to know it well.

The same went double for Unggoy; and this educated Deacon would almost certainly have had four-jaw speak as a natural second language. It was much to his credit that he spoke Ruuht'ka with almost equal fluency - he was by no means required to learn it with the same vigour.

"You will all have the honour of receiving consecrated weaponry this day," he declared, the high-pitched, weedy accent of his kind mixing awkwardly with my people's main tongue, "weaponry which had been blessed by the power and light of the Gods. The weapons that you will wield from this day forth are thus none other than the tools of the Gods themselves. Thus, they require nothing but the utmost reverence, care and devotion, as expected from all true followers of the Path..."

He continued with his repetitive liturgy and religious babble. Our weapons were the tools of the Gods, consecrated and passed down by their noble and just messengers, the Prophets, who granted them to us to serve as their faithful, true and obedient arm by which they delivered judgement on the defiler, the non-believer, the heretic, the unclean; we were thus to remember that we were the arm of the Prophets, the instrument of the will of the Gods, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

Quite frankly, to recite all of it would bore you just as much as it bored me that day. I'd heard plenty of such drivel before in tedious broadcasts for 'maintaining faith and purpose'. None of it ever made an impression on me.

I've said before that I never truly believed a word of our Covenant's official faith - or even any religion for that matter. Yes, there were atheists among the Covenant, even then. My people were probably the least faithful, so my own views weren't that unique.

That isn't to say there weren't any true believers among the Kig-Yar - there were, and I would suffer consequences from them if I opened my mouth too wide about my own faith. But by and large most of us didn't take the self-proclaimed True Path seriously the way the Sangheili and Unggoy did.

Many, like myself, chose to fight for the Covenant for the higher pay offered to our species' soldiers. There were some genuine crusaders among us - I'd met more than a few those past weeks. Yet most of us thought that people who genuinely believed everything the Prophets said - who were actively seeking death to get on the Great Journey - were misguided fools.

Yes, we received the Prophets' sermons in official broadcasts almost daily and heard their teachings repeatedly from childhood. And yes, we knew our weaponry and technology was enhanced, derived or in some cases directly reverse-engineered and copied from the technology of the Forerunners. That was the centre of the Covenant's promise - the Forerunners would provide for us in this world, and show us the Path to the divine beyond where we would one day join them.

Such holy work regarding the divine technology was the exclusive reserve of the Prophets, and their Huragok servants - only they had the divine right to do so, as the voices and tools of the Gods, respectively. So sayeth the Unggoy. The weapons we would wield for the first time today could be said to have been 'blessed' by the ancients themselves.

Yet I also knew from my father that some of those weapons - like that Type-33 Needler the Deacon was pontificating over as he lead the weaponry hand-over rites - were of Sangheili design, dating back from before the Covenant. The material it used was mined from one of their homeworld's moons. Modified by the Prophets or not, it was still the same weapon.

In short, that weapon's origins had little to do with the Prophets or the Forerunners. So how blessed an instrument was it? To me, it was no less deadly, divine or different from that Focus rifle - directly reverse-engineered from a Forerunner beam weapon - that the Deacon had turned his attention to. The Type-52 Special Applications Rifle was known to have reliability issues, in fact - so could it really be more 'blessed' than the Needler?

The Sangheili had once been against using Forerunner technology - for them that had been the main heresy of the time. It was only through force, by means of the Dreadnought that now stood in High Charity, that they were persuaded otherwise - thus their old beliefs were the heresy of today. Could that really be called a divine conversion, an enlightening miracle? How was using 'divine' technology for our own ends less heretical than leaving it untouched?

Would our technology be worshipped, when our civilisation vanished? Had the Forerunners even imagined their technology would be considered as 'divine gifts' in their own time? For that matter, had they even expected to be worshipped as Gods?

Maybe I asked too many questions. That could get me into trouble. I'd admitted to my father about my own cynicism about the words of the Prophets - cynicism which I knew was widespread. He wisely told me to keep it to myself.

I had no control over what the Prophets taught, or what people believed. The Covenant provided good pay and a strong, stable economy for my people, true faith or not. That was enough for me.

The Unggoy continued with his rites, blessing each class of weapon individually. Needless to say, it was a long and dreary process. He concluded with one very significant passage, however.

"The faithful never forget that it is the sacred duty of the Prophets - and the Prophets alone - to oversee our sacred tools. Those who would alter them, steal them, sell them, replicate them in graven images; abuse the gifts of our Gods for their own selfish purposes, are guilty of the most grievous heresy, the most unconscionable desecration. The gifts of the ancients are for the good of _all_ \- not for the ends of a _few_."

 _Funny -_ last time I checked, the Prophets were a _few_. A minority in the Covenant, in fact. And nearly _all_ of the Covenant was forbidden from producing or even understanding our technology.

I tried not to laugh at the irony. I'm still thankful I managed to.

Even so, the Deacon had laid down the Covenant's most strictly enforced and draconian law. Besides the Prophets, individual soldiers or citizens were forbidden to modify, replicate, produce or sell the technology our Covenant produced - only those who had received the official sanction and blessings of the Hierarchs and High Council were permitted to do so.

These were always the big Sangheili arms-masters, with their great foundries on their homeworld (it was alright for them, the Gods fully approved of course) so _we_ could forget about any such allowance. We received the technology designed by the Prophets (and sometimes Sangheili), produced by the Prophets and distributed by the Prophets; that was that. We could repair and maintain our weapons, with Huragok help - but no more.

Of course, I knew that there was a large underground cottage industry, mostly among pirate groups, where our kind did modify, replicate, produce and sell Covenant weaponry under the noses of the San 'Shyuum; a heresy they were still trying and failing to eradicate. Our local authorities often turned a blind eye to it - so the illegal producers diligently continued their work. Their products regularly ended up in the numerous black markets that operated across the Covenant Empire, by-passing the endless bureaucracy of official channels.

If our training grounds had been found using such counterfeit weapons though... since we dealt closely with the Sangheili in providing troops for their legions, I don't even want to think what they would have done to us.

"Thus _you_ are not to modify any of these sacred arms for _your_ own ends," the Unggoy rasped out. "Always exercise self-denial before these consecrated instruments. May the Gods and their holy Prophets preserve this knowledge in your souls, always."

With that, he concluded his sermon, and bowed out. Xen merely nodded - I was amazed how he had seemed attentive all that time.

Even so, he didn't want to waste any more time with words and blather. He merely gestured with a talon, and Major Nix stepped forward.

"Today, we shall start with a test of accuracy, through use of a basic weapon," Nix announced briskly. He sounded as thankful as we were that the Deacon's sermon was over. "A favourite of every common soldier who serves the Prophets - one that will become familiar for many of you."

He marched over to the weapons station. Each weapon type had its own storage rack - Nix was aiming for one weapon in particular. He pulled out a single example - a curved, smooth plated creation, which from the side looked almost like a small set of jawbones.

The teeth of the jaws glowed green, nodes of potent and deadly plasma waiting to be unleashed. We only needed half a second to recognise the gun in question.

"The Type-25 pistol is the best friend of nearly every Kig-Yar and Unggoy alike that fights for this Covenant. You might complain about some of its characteristics, you might wish for a higher weapon. But this tool will be what _most_ , if not _all_ of you, are issued with as your main firearm. It will be your life, your closest comrade. Know it _well_."

He went through the basics - how to eject and replace the power core, field stripping (a plasma pistol only has a few strippable parts for its user - the rest of it, including the intricate and integral systems, was designed only for Huragok to access), cleaning and such.

The Type-25 plasma pistol is overall a very durable weapon; not too complex, easy to operate and most importantly, easy to manufacture. It was designed specifically to be mass-produced for use by huge units of low-trained soldiers. Unggoy, in other words. We sometimes called it the 'people's gun', and it was as common as muck in the military.

For the Sangheili it was little more than a handgun. For us and the Unggoy soldiers, it would be our main infantry weapon. Equal our Covenant was not.

Yet the pistol had one special feature that made it unique. Nix began to test fire the weapon, shooting globules of green plasma at the open ground in front of him, scorching it.

"As you can see, it can burn through anything that isn't protected by energy shields. Fortunately for you, that includes human soldiers."

We all chuckled with laughter. Nix did have a some sense of black humour, alongside a twisted imagination. He allowed for our amusement and continued.

"However, you may encounter larger targets - we have found their combat vehicles to be highly formidable and deadly to our infantry, and so will you. In the event that no heavy weapons available, there is a use for the Type-25."

As part of his demonstration, one of the Huragok brought out an engine from a Type-32 Rapid Attack Vehicle, otherwise known as the Ghost. The engine had been dismounted from its chassis purely for this exercise. On a signal from the Deacon, the Huragok activated it, lighting it up with power.

The Deacon then signalled the Huragok to withdraw, before directing to some over task at the far end of the grounds, where its partner was already working. I paid them no mind, my attention focused on Nix.

"There is a feature that can be activated simply by holding the trigger down. Like this."

He pointed the pistol to the Ghost engine as he spoke, and as he said those last two words, his hand gripped the trigger in a tight compression.

A concentration of plasma began to build and swell between the two nodes with a shrill hum, until it became as bright as a star. The weapon trembled, humming and whining in Nix's hands.

Finally, he released the overcharge straight at the engine with a hiss, green vapour diffusing like noxious smog from the pistol's opened vents as it overheated.

The overcharge burned through the air like a meteor, slamming into the engine with a splashing hiss of energy. The engine went dark, stray crackles of static electricity sparking across its form. It had been completely shut down.

"We have found that a plasma overcharge has the same effect on human engines," Nix continued, venting the overheated pistol. "So if you have the sense when one of their vehicles is headed straight for you, release an overcharge and hope for the best. That, or you can hide behind a Mgalegkolo. Not that they'd care to protect you."

He checked the pistol's vents again, making sure all excess waste energy had been expelled. After a quick examination, he clicked the weapon shut.

"There shall be a test concerning these weapons," he continued, returning the pistol to its rack after replacing the power core. "A test of accuracy."

He nodded to the Unggoy Deacon, who once more signed to the Huragok at the far end of the grounds. They gave their own signs in response and within a second, a row of shimmering energy fields sprung into being.

Each of these fields was rectangular, powered by a projector on the sandy deck. Similar to deployable energy shields in the field - but these served a different purpose. The single red circle at the centre of each field made this purpose obvious.

"Each of you will take a shot at these targets," Nix declared. "The results of each shot will be recorded by the field projectors' systems. We shall determine the accuracy of each individual recruit. The results will be made known to you after the following meal."

He turned directly to face the lance he commanded, the 4th Training Lance - or in plainer terms, us.

Out of the twelve of us in the lance that had begun this training, eight remained, including myself. Hoth and the three others who had passed on had since been forgotten. There was no use in dwelling on the dead.

"You will be called one by one, lance by lance. You will be chosen at random. The first to shoot shall be..." he paused, briefly deliberating, before finding his voice again. "Recruit Par!"

My bunkmate grunted in surprise, before stepping up to the weapons station. The Major handed him another plasma pistol - a fresh one. Nix wanted the test perfect, so it wouldn't do to have a malfunction with the pistol he'd just overheated.

Par wordlessly accepted the pistol. He wasn't one for small talk, or courtesy in general for that matter - though he had become my closest comrade these past weeks.

You got on fine with him as long as you stayed on his good side - if you could call it his good side. I would call it more his placid side. When he got angry, you didn't want to be in his way, or the subject of his wrath. Nevertheless, Par had stayed focused and strong throughout - which was one reason he was still here.

He'd saved my life, too. On the hill of the rolling boulders, soon after Hoth had been killed, he'd pulled me out of the way of an even larger boulder that rolled by. He was a good comrade, even if he didn't show it most of the time.

Besides being averse to courtesy, Par wasn't one for subtlety either. He simply raised the pistol and fired straight at the field. It was difficult to see from where I was, but I doubt he hit the circle, let alone the centre.

Still, he didn't seem too bothered. He had a very strong physique, so I suspected he would be better used as a close-quarters fighter than a ranged combat specialist.

He rejoined the rest of us, and Nix called out the next recruit.

"Recruit Vek!"

Now, Vek tended to go for talk, as I said. Even now, he was profusely thanking Nix for the opportunity to finally use a weapon - though the latter couldn't have cared less, and made this painfully clear.

"Just aim for the target, recruit," Nix snapped, grabbing Vek and shoving towards the range, before snarling and finally screaming into his ear. "We don't. _Have._ _All._ _DAY!_ "

Vek would stay focused so long as he had someone to scold or slap him into focus - that someone would either be Par or myself. But when a situation got really bad, he would rise to the occasion, even though he would still mouth off. He had taken Nix's lecture on the first morning here to heart, and he'd made up for it since.

So it only took that tiny bit of scolding from Nix to get him back on track. He took a bit longer in aiming than Par did - and I think he got it closer to the target, too. Satisfied, he rejoined us.

"Recruit Kreth!"

I've said that there were a few pious crusaders in our ranks. Oddities to be sure, but they did exist.

Kreth was one such crusader. I later found he already knew the Deacon was present here before today, as he was one of the handful of recruits in Vara who went to the camp shrine every evening.

No mistake, he was a true believer. He would openly get angry with recruits who joked about the Path which, he said, we all followed like it or not. For him, every word of the Prophets came straight from the Holy Oracle of the Dreadnought on High Charity. That same Oracle had chosen the Hierarchs who lead us now, as it had chosen those before them. Thus our leaders were always right, no questions asked.

Unlike most Covenant citizens, Kreth had found the money and time to make his own pilgrimage to the holy city, a cycle or so before coming here. This pilgrimage included the Forerunner Dreadnought itself, which he always described as dramatically as possible. As the most holy site in the whole Covenant, it was a dream come true for any pious pilgrim to even _see_ it.

Kreth saw more, however.

He had attended a special ceremony in the Abbey of the Voice of the Gods located within the mighty ship, which honoured the Oracle at its heart. During that ceremony, lead by a San 'Shyuum priest of the Order of Ascetics, he claimed to have experienced a vision - one that he said drove him to join the military.

Kreth claimed to have heard the Oracle's voice speaking to him in his head, telling him that it was his duty to fight in this war and bring doom to the humans. I am certain that it was his own fevered mind. Still, after returning from High Charity he was left with no doubt about his faith; fresh from his 'vision' he was drawn to fight for it.

He was eager to get to the frontlines - more so than any of our fiercest fighters, even Par. He always said it was the duty of every true believer to fight in the war with the humans, against this greatest of all heretical civilisations the Covenant had encountered. This was a holy war, one he had been commanded by the Oracle to join, in order to prepare his soul for the Great Journey to come.

I'll give him credit - he had the faith and devotion of a Sangheili. This was reflected in the training - Kreth was the most focused out of the whole lance, a great asset to the rest of us.

Even so...I did not like spending too much time with him alone. Whenever he was not present, we would whisper about him in hushed tones: _was he truly so misguided?_

Kreth kept the same focus for the shot that he had throughout our whole training regimen - the focus of a true zealot. I'm certain he got close to the mark.

"Recruit Salz!"

Salz was Kreth's opposite - he was in it for the money, more so than any of us. He always talked about his supposedly certain future, which involved an estate on some nice place in Eayn, or some luxury retreat colony. He was the eternal optimist, you understand.

His brother was apparently an already very successful mercenary who ran his own guild, and Salz hoped to join him in the business soon after gaining enough experience as a full-time soldier. Still, he'd have to survive first. He took the shot with all the confidence he always possessed.

"Recruit Shik!"

Like Hoth, Shik had been working as a crewman of an asteroid miner before enlisting. He was the oldest member of the 4th Training Lance that still lived - I'd say around in his late-twenties - and covered in scars. Par told me that they were most likely from rock chippings in the mine-shafts and tunnels, or molten sparks from the on-board refineries of the mining stations.

Such an experience would make anyone confident they could survive anything - and Shik certainly exuberated the kind of calm, quiet confidence that comes with experience. He showed that as he took his shot down the range.

"Recruit Fehn!"

Fehn was from the Fac clan, like I was. Not that it made him special or particularly related - our clans contain many branches and at most, he was likely a distant cousin. He'd lived his whole life in Han City itself, with all its hustle and bustle. In spite of this, he was mostly a quiet sort, speaking on the rarest of occasions.

"Recruit Nokh!"

Another quiet sort, Nokh was from a small plantation-owning family. Like Par, he was from the plantation flatlands north of Han. His family's plantation was apparently less successful than most; it seemed he was in this to get enough money to support his kin, rather than for personal gain. I respected him for that - he was another oddity within our ranks.

"Recruit Trau!"

And finally, _me_. The last to be called out. I couldn't help but think that Major Nix had done this because he wanted to be able to easily compare me with the others. It wasn't the first time that he'd subtly highlighted me like this.

Not that he ever gave me any special treatment, or anything like that. But I still remembered our first meeting back in Han City, when he had tried to persuade me not to join the war. Whatever relationship Nix had with my father - it was clearly affecting how he viewed me.

I have to say that I was bothered by that. I wanted my achievements to be my own, I wanted to be subject to the same standards my comrades were. I didn't want to be the product of any nepotism. I still loved and looked up to my father, even in death - but I was not my father. I didn't want his legacy to colour how others viewed me. Yet it seemed impossible to avoid.

I brushed aside my thoughts, preparing myself. I took the plasma pistol from Nix and as I did so, he whispered into my ear with a hiss.

 _"Don't mess this up, recruit; or the last you'll see is my teeth going for your throat!"_

That was a sign that he truly cared.

Without further hesitation, I took my place on the impromptu firing range, and aimed the weapon as best I could at the distant red circle.

As I did so, a distant memory came back to me...

* * *

 _"Remember Trau, remain absolutely still - like a stone."_

We were out in the wetlands one evening, under the cover of the tall grasses. It had been a peaceful summer day - a treasure on T'Vao.

 _"So long as you are a stone, you can always shoot straight. And those you hunt - your prey, your enemies - they will never suspect a stone. As long as you blend in, as long as you stay focused and still, you will remain a stone. A stone always survives."_

He was whispering softly in my ear, his voice as soft as the breeze. My young voice was just as soft as I repeated his advice.

 _"I am a stone. I must remain a stone."_

I kept the bolt-rifle absolutely still. It was an antique weapon of native design, not produced by the Prophets - but it could perform the task at hand.

I kept my eye focused on my target, aligned in the iron-sights. My species have keen eyesight, even in low-light or darkness. This would serve me well here, as it serves all Kig-Yar marksmen.

 _I am a stone...I am a stone...I am a stone..._

It was now or never. I fired.

The high-pressure gas system in the rifle expelled the thin, finely crafted bolt through the barrel, straight into the curving neck of the Great Net-bill that had been feeding just in front of our hiding spot.

My father smiled proudly down at me, as I breathed in exhilaration.

"Well done, Trau."

* * *

No sooner than my thoughts had cleared, I fired. The bolt of green plasma left the twin nodes, and straight into the red circle.

I probably didn't hit the centre-point itself. But I definitely got it within the circle. I returned the weapon, confident that I had attained a high score.

Even Nix seemed satisfied, giving me a curt nod and a grunt of acknowledgement. High praise indeed, coming from him.

I returned to my lance-mates, giddy with triumph. All those years in the Ream wetlands had paid off - I already knew how to shoot straight, I just needed to prove what I knew. I was confident that I would make it as a marksman in the army.

The recruits of the 5th and 6th Lances took their shots, but to be honest my thoughts drifted off again. People get like that, when they are stood in a dusty yard for hours...first listening to a tedious sermon and then only moving and shooting once, watching over people take the test for the rest of all that time...

Fortunately Par nudged me in the ribs, waking me out of my thoughts. I hadn't even realised Champion Xen had been speaking these past few minutes.

"...so upon your return from the morning meal, then and only then will you know your results. Your results shall determine whether you will follow the kut-van - the way of the boarder and brawler - or the irs-van - the way of the marksman. You have taken your test, it is now out of your hands. Have your meal, then return."

We all filed out, assembling towards the recruits' mess hall. Whatever my results were, they would determine what weapons I would fight with in the future - and how I would fight, in terms of how I would be deployed with the Sangheili. As a sharpshooter armed with a mid to long-range rifle, or as a shock trooper armed with a close-quarters weapon, like a needler.

It was a key point of my training - and I was nervous.

But as Champion Xen said, I would have to wait until after breakfast. So, if you'll excuse me...

 **A/N: Dissertation handed in and finished, 1st September! MA course completed! Now I can focus. Hope this chapter is to your liking guys. Please review!**


	8. I: Chapter 8 - Revelation

**Chapter Eight: Revelation**

 **16th June, 2533 (UNSC Calendar)**

 **Ninth Age of Reclamation, 8th Solar Cycle (Covenant Calendar)**

 **Eayn, Y'Deio System**

Kig-Yar cuisine is, from the point of view of most other sentient species we share this galaxy with, an acquired taste at best.

Most of the other races of our Covenant were certainly averse to what we ate. The Sangheili were always too proud to eat anything other than the delicacies of their own homeworld. The Jiralhanae were the same - they loved nothing but the meat of roasted beasts from Doisac. The San 'Shyuum always preferred their own herbal teas, brewed from plants preserved from their lost homeworld, to any blends from our teahouses. As for the Unggoy - they were content with that crap they sucked on from their food nipples.

For us though, hok-vash - our most popular stew - is the food of the gods themselves. It does not merely contain various meats and fish, but also several kinds of vegetables - most commonly roots and tubers, though this can vary with a touch of various spices - that give it flavour.

Right now I was lapping up a dish of hok-vash served from a single huge steaming pot of the stuff for breakfast, together with my comrades in the recruits' feasting hall. A one-pot meal is traditional among our people, served at any time of day.

All those diverse flavours, meats and tastes...you can find it all in hok-vash. It remains my favourite meal to this day...

* * *

 _At this precise moment, Trau was feasting from a broad dish of...I could just about call it stew...which he told me was named 'hok-vash'. We were once more in the tea-house, in our second day of the interview._

 _Right now, he was continuing his account over lunch - which for him was a bowl of the stuff._

 _I forced myself once more to look at the bowl of animal parts - including heads and eyes - fish heads and fillets with their bones still visible...and several other ingredients that were beyond description._

 _The whole thing smelled like chum - the foul combination of fish guts and blood used to attract sharks. According to Trau though, it was the most sweet-smelling dish ever made._

 _I struggled to keep the toasted sandwiches I was eating down in my stomach where they belonged. I just about succeeded._

 _"Would you like to try some, Mr Crawford?" He asked, as he eagerly lapped up the stew. The way he ate suitably reminded me of the ravenous canines for which his people were named. "It is edible for humans."_

 _I almost retched at the thought. Still, when in Rome..._

 _"Of course."_

 _He served me a portion on a smaller plate - a mere taster. I took it from him._

 _Not wishing to cause offence, I speared part of it with my fork and put it in my mouth._

 _It will surprise the reader that the eyeball of - whichever of the many animals it was that went into the making of the stew - tasted so sweet. At the same time, the smell was so overwhelming that the taste was almost impossible to appreciate. The rest of the stew did indeed have a huge variety of flavours - ranging from sweet to extremely bitter, with varying degrees of spice. The whole combination felt unnatural, almost inedible...and yet strangely satisfying._

 _Trau saw my forced approval as I gradually finished the rest of the portion, forcing it all down my throat._

 _"Would you like some more?"_

 _"No thank you." I had already finished my sandwiches - and at that moment, one taste was enough. "I'm full right now."_

* * *

As I said, an acquired taste. But let us return...

Following our dismissal from the courtyard, we had eagerly filed into the feasting hall for breakfast while the Majors analysed the results of our marksmanship tests. At that moment, we were all gathered around a round table, as per tradition in a Kig-Yar lance. All soldiers of the same rank are equal, and thus there is no formal hierarchy by seating arrangement in our messes.

There were paintings, blue and white tiles and woodblock prints throughout the mess hall, depicting naval and land battles between the clans during the seafaring age. Swarms of arrows and clouds of gunpowder smoke, the lethal forms of ancient corsair ships plying white-crested deep blue waves, soldiers and pirates armed with crossbows, swords, shields, pikes, pistols and bayoneted muskets - no detail was spared in the artwork all around us.

Alongside the paintings there were framed astrolabes, compasses and other navigational instruments, ancient helmets and hunting trophies, crossed cutlasses and bolt-rifles. Nevertheless it was the artwork that drew the most attention in that room, through the sheer richness of detail that went into it all.

The painted tiles in particular, with their illustrations always in blue and white, are a common form of Kig-Yar art. We call them _pan-ra-tars_ \- visions on tiles. They traditionally adorned the walls and fireplaces of comfortable homes on Eayn, as well as those of teahouses, inns and taverns. They are one of Eayn's luxury exports, popular with our merchants but now also with some wealthy San 'Shyuum and Sangheili.

The tiles in the mess-hall also depicted scenes of history - the corsair ships, the great merchant hulks and carracks of the seafaring age, our first spaceflights and the founding of the first asteroid colonies. Yet there were also mythological scenes - great mother Chu'ot birthing the children that would go on to orbit her, Chu'ot watching over the first Kig-Yar as they grew from their early innocence to harsh maturity, facing all their temptations.

The greatest temptation and flaw of our people was heavily depicted, as a demon that grew fat on Kig-Yar souls. It was represented by an obese, monstrous, deformed Ibie'shan carrying overflowing buckets and bursting sacks of food and gold in many of its multiple flabby arms; while using its free hands to grasp the mortals it fed on, those who were drawn in by its allure.

That demon had a simple name: Greed.

Each lance had a round table to itself, with a pot of hok-vash stew in the middle. It was the typical setting of our meals, really.

Seated beside me, Par guzzled several tan-back eyes in one portion of his stew. The amphibian they come from is a native of T'Vao, and thus is a very common delicacy among my kind. The eyeballs popped in his mouth, their contents spilling out as he savoured them before swallowing. He finished off with a satisfying burp.

Then he turned to me, continuing a little conversation we'd been having.

"So you're still willing to bet that you'll be an irs-van in the next hour?"

I nodded, downing my half-full cup of water as I did so. "Any bet you want to make, I'll match it. There's no way I failed - not for any amount of gold."

Yes, I was still young and cocky back then. Still, I felt little reason to doubt myself - my shot had definitely landed within the target circle, I had seen it. Par, as I said, had little reason to believe he would be made a marksman.

Not that he cared.

"Then I'll bet anything that I made kut-van," he jeered. "It's what it was born for. It's my destiny."

"Same my end for irs-van," I retorted.

"Whatever, titch." I was much shorter than him, you understand.

He wasn't being rude, or anything - it was just how we interacted. It was a testament to how close we were that we really could get away with saying to anything to each other. Such are the bonds that the barrack blocks breed.

You're probably curious about the different designations of our warriors - irs-van and kut-van. So I will explain.

The terminology dates back to the early seafaring era. The irs-van were from the beginning ranged warriors, marksmen who typically fired on their enemies from the masts, rigging and crow's nests of a ship. In the early days they would have been armed with bows or crossbows, before they took up firearms - muskets and bolt-rifles - as time went on.

It was in this theatre that the Kig-Yar tradition of proficient marksmanship began. Naval battles would involve ships closing in not just with cannon but also with packs of irs-van clustered throughout their rigging and masts; any ship that was not armed with heavy cannon would be guaranteed to have a contingent of irs-van. These warriors were the seeds of our modern snipers.

The irs-van did also take part in land-fighting - but in the early seafaring era that role was seen as the domain of the kut-van, the close-quarters fighters. These warriors would be armed with cutlasses or pistols, with some contingents carrying broad shields - which our present day hand-held energy shields are modelled on.

Kut-van armed with such shields would be inclined to operate in regimented formations, often combining their shields into a tight wall or tortoise formation. These warriors were mostly used in pitched land battles or boarding actions at sea - in proper formation, they could smash through the opposition like a battering ram. Today's Ruuhtian and Ibie'shan kut-van regard themselves as being the descendants of these warriors.

Kut-van that did not use shields would operate in smaller groups - commonly termed 'kill squads' - that served as more mobile light infantry, forgoing protection in favour of speed. These light kut-van were most effectively employed in raids of coastal settlements, or attacks on poorly defended merchant ships. For that reason they were mostly found among pirates, while shielded kut-van were typically employed by soldiers and militia.

T'Voan kut-van are of the lighter version - we do not carry the shields of our Ruuhtian brethren. We make full use of our speed and agility, so it is only natural that our kut-van would model themselves on the kill squads of pirate light infantry. That same model is also used by our commandos, who ironically spend most of their time fighting pirates.

That roughly covers the simple, binary caste system that exists among our warriors. Of course, combat doesn't always fit neat little boxes. Even if I qualified as an irs-van, I would still have to fight close-up if the situation called for it. T'Voans were employed as shock-troops - warriors who breached the enemy lines - so in my case that was very likely.

"It does not matter how I would choose to fight."

I suddenly looked up from my food to the speaker, as did everyone else on our table. I recognised the voice immediately - it was Kreth.

He continued, wistfully, as if his mind were far-off from the rest of us by many miles.

Which it often was.

"That choice has already been made for me. I cannot change my fate - that has already been determined by the Gods. The oracle said as much. My destiny has already been decided for me. I cannot affect it."

We sat for a moment in awkward silence. This often happened when Kreth spoke. Finally, Par sneered in response.

"If I thought like you, I'd already be dead. We all would be."

"We all will be soon. The Journey calls to all of us. All of our deaths are required for it."

More awkward silence. Kreth had a fine talent for making everyone else uncomfortable. He was a good comrade, reliable to a fault - but it was times like this when I felt like putting something in my ears, or failing that over his mouth.

Par just grunted and returned to eating, as did everyone else. Kreth sulked, having once again failed to convert the rest of us to the blessed Path.

I always did my best to ignore Kreth and his mad piety - but the man was just impossible to ignore. I knew little of his background - supposedly he was orphaned at an early age, ended up in fosterage for most of his life and was left with a large will. Such people are typically drawn to religion; he always said how he spent the last of the money he'd inherited on his pilgrimage to High Charity. To him it was a worthwhile investment.

It was not my place to control other people's beliefs, and I knew all too well what it was to lose family while young. What I could not stand was somebody trying to impose his faith on everyone else - for that reason, I did not like spending too much time with Kreth. Nor did many of the others. Kreth would spend more time with his fellow zealots at the shrine than his own lance.

In battle however, we would all have to rely on each other. So we would always do our best to tolerate Kreth's strangeness and focus on his qualities as a soldier - which by all account was undisputed.

Still, there was always a distance between him and the rest of us - one that hopefully would not affect our functioning as one unit. Since he seemed to actually believe that crap about death being the most glorious path on the Great Journey - and seemed eager to follow that path - I wondered if Kreth might just become a liability in a combat situation, regardless of his advanced skill.

Before I could properly finish my thoughts however, the bell rang. We were being summoned. A grunt sounded across the table as we got up to leave.

"Into the hands of fate," the oldest of my lance-mates huffed, "wherever we get put."

That was Shik, the former asteroid miner. He always stayed solid in the face of just about everything. Even when we had passed through the hell that was Var'ka'mar, he had never once broken down or cried out - he just kept moving in steely silence, and had been the first to clear the swamp.

If there was any one of our lance who obviously struck me as being a born survivor, it was Shik. He seemed to go into any situation accepting whatever fate awaited him, ploughing on regardless, always ice-cool under pressure. He was physically tough and strong, too - his strength was closely tied with that of Par in our lance, and though Par had the advantage in being younger, Shik made up for that in sheer experience.

As with Par I felt safe sticking close to him in the worst situations - someone like that was good at keeping himself alive, and would likely help to keep _you_ alive in a fight too. When you have a man like Shik backing you up, you reckon nothing can take you down - you'll stand with them in a fire-fight, no question.

Of course, if they took the first bullet...

We filed out of the mess hall and into the stone corridor leading to the assembly ground. As we did so, I heard a sniggering voice to my right.

"Hey Trau - you do know that the kut-van get paid more, right? Heard it this morning from a couple of blokes from West Barracks. You're missing out aiming for sniper, brother!"

"Rubbish," I retorted. "I know you just want the sniper position all to yourself - more pay for you, Salz. That's why you're trying to talk everyone else out of going for it."

"Yeah, except I'm going to be first in line for mercenary work anyway, once my brother hears how many kills I'll have chalked up."

"Someone will chalk _you_ up first, if you don't _shut it_ ," Par growled dangerously. "Trau and I might just be the ones to do it."

"I'll be long gone before then! Who came first in the last run Par?"

Par was still peeved that Salz had beaten him to the finish line in our last cross-country run - so he just replied with an irate grunt.

"There you are then! I'm going to be way ahead of you lot."

Like I said, Salz was the eternal optimist as well as the eternal entrepreneur. Not only that, he was also our resident wind-up merchant, as you may already have noticed. Sometimes he'd wind-up Kreth for fun - but ironically he got on better with the squad zealot than anyone else.

He never got tired of taking the piss - and as much as we all wanted to strangle him sometimes (Par especially), we loved him and laughed with him just as much. He'd wind you up in a flash, but you could always trust him to keep everyone's spirits high.

Soon enough, we reached the courtyard. Ribib, our Unggoy Deacon, was conspicuously absent - though the two Huragok were still there, on hand to maintain our weapons. The three Majors of East Barracks, together with Champion Xen, awaited us.

Needing little encouragement from our overseers we lined up and stood at attention, waiting for our results with baited breath.

"Recruits of the East Barracks," Xen began, after a patient wait of five minutes or so. "We have analysed your results - your pained wait will soon be over. Know that, regardless of your result, you have passed every other test we have put you through. We are proud to have trained you - whatever craft you will practice here-on, whatever weapon you will take up as your own, know that it is a certainty that you will become proud warriors of the Covenant and our blessed Proph..."

I tuned out the rest of his speech. I was never good at paying attention to long speeches - whether they came from the Prophets, our clan leaders, or anyone else. A man can only concentrate on another's words for so long, before his mind becomes clouded and he is no longer cognizant of all that he hears, along with all things around him...

"Recruit Trau?"

 _Shit. Why do I keep doing that?_

Xen's voice brought me back, and I stiffened to attention. "Champion."

I was just glad no-one else was fixing their gaze on me - though I thought I could hear a brief sigh from Major Nix. Still, it was quite a shock that I was first to be called in receiving the results.

Our Champion gave me a curt nod. "Your senses, awareness levels and reactions all need improving, recruit. But fear not - we shall give you the remedies you require, as you follow the path of the irs-van."

I managed to hide the grin. Had it shown, it would have swallowed my whole face.

I had done it. _Eat my heart out, Par_.

"Step forward and accept your rifle - the first of many."

I obeyed, stepping towards the weapons rack. The Champion moved towards me, stopping in front a set of Type-31 Needle Rifles. He pondered before them briefly, before speaking again.

"Those of our kind who accept the title of irs-van fight with the needle rifle first, initiate. That is the official policy of the Covenant Army, and of this training ground. Am I understood?"

"You are understood, honoured Champion."

"Of course. However, this rule only applies to a _majority_ of our kind. There is always a _minority_ who are different."

I cocked my head, struggling to understand what my highest superior was saying.

"You are one such initiate. Your marksmanship tests have shown exceptional promise. For that reason..."

Xen moved to another weapons rack, before removing the rifle in question.

"We have decided that your skills are best tested with this - a carbine of the Sangheili themselves."

I was speechless. The Type-51 Carbine was officially known as the Sangheili Carbine in the army, due to its origins. It was commonly called the four-jaw gun among the Kig-Yar ranks - but even so it was at the time considered a prized weapon for any of our marksmen. So much so that often only commandoes like my father had the privilege of wielding it.

For our ranks, it was like gold. Though most irs-van were given needle rifles, I'd heard talk of this rule gradually being relaxed. Production of the Type-51 was slowly increasing as the Sangheili arms forges expanded on war profits - the blueprints had also been handed over to the Ministry of Preparation. The four-jaws, who once would have fallen on their swords before permitting their ancient weapon designs for the likes of _us_ , were starting to become more pragmatic.

Even _they_ valued our skills as marksmen - so there were more field masters who were trying to equip of us with better weapons. Before, they wouldn't have cared. Only now, after facing an enemy who could actually _fight back_ , were most Sangheili commanders realising that war was serious business. It does not reward pride or pettiness.

For now, the Type-51 was a rare gift for a Kig-Yar irs-van - the needle rifle was still produced in far greater numbers. So you can imagine my shock at being given one.

"The weapon is yours, initiate," Xen resumed. "Perhaps you would care to demonstrate it?"

He gestured with a talon, and I turned to that direction. Another target had been set up - this time it was not an energy field. It was but a single rack, with a single holder containing a lone coin of brass.

I cradled the carbine in my talons, adjusting myself to its weight. I knew what was expected.

"If you can shoot that coin," Xen continued, speaking aloud so all could hear, "then we will all know for sure you are worthy of mastering this weapon." He then softened his voice, speaking only to me. "Take your time."

I raised the weapon, putting my right eye to the sights. The Type-51 - like all modern military-grade firearms - usually has a proximity signal link, which transmits the carbine's targeting systems to the heads-up display of the user's helmet. This system is mostly designed for Sangheili combat armour - but it is also compatible with our targeting headgear and commando helmets.

This system negates the need for the carbine to be fitted with a manual sight, as a targeting helmet creates the necessary holographic reticule and zoom option required for the carbine, along with any other weapon - but as a humble recruit I had no such helmet. At least, not yet.

Thus the Type-51 I now held was a training version, fitted with an external sight. It did not make a massive difference, however - the sight was much more miniaturised compared to what it would be on a human rifle.

It suited me very well. Through the sights, the holographic reticule was arranged in a perfect honeycomb of seven neat hexagons - the four-jaws liked their weaponry elegant and fancy.

I for one wasn't complaining - it made their carbine so easy to aim.

I spied the target rack, adjusting the zoom controls - two smooth buttons just where the carbine's stock met the barrel. The thing was a dream to hold - light for a Sangheili weapon, easy to keep steady - a designated marksman's dream, basically.

It helped that it had two grips - one forward and one behind - which were the two holes at the back. This allows for a flexible arm span, and for the shooter to change stance easily. Useful for my kind.

Even though the Sangheili had originally designed the carbine for themselves, the Ministry of Resolution had the design adjusted just enough to make it compatible with our anatomy as well. They had done a good job - which was a rare feat for them.

I tightened my talon on the trigger of the weapon, just in front of the forward grip, as I moved the centre of the honeycomb to the coin - which was roughly over one hundred metres from my position, at the far edge of the training grounds. The Type-51's range exceeds that distance - but the zoom settings are not as great as they would be on a particle beam rifle.

They were, however, sufficient for this task. I lined up the reticule, centred on the coin - and took the shot.

The gun gave a whining-bark as it fired - the recoil was less than I expected, but I sure did feel it. I imagined it would be less of a kick by Sangheili standards. Still, the recoil was contained enough by the carbine's design for an accurate shot.

The round - a solid, super-heated projectile, forged from radioactive material - travelled at supersonic speed from the barrel, much faster than any plasma charge. Projectile weapons are not as primitive or ineffective as commonly dismissed.

Anything it hit was unlikely to survive - and even if the victim did survive, any round travelling at such speed would leave behind a lot of damage, not to mention the first-degree burns and radiation poisoning it would inflict. What would it be like to be hit by such a weapon? For that matter, what would it be like to hit another living being with it?

With a ping of shot brass, the coin vanished, blown away by the supersonic slug of toxic radioactive crystal. Most likely it was just simply vaporised.

I allowed a grin to slip through. _Nailed it._

Xen nodded.

"A fine shot recruit. But perhaps you would care to compare it," he said, while picking one of the Type-31s from their respective rack, "with our more common tool?"

I nodded. Such a comparison would be useful - and there were still a few Sangheili who did not approve of our use of their carbines. The Type-51 was based on an ancient weapon that pre-dated the Covenant, after all.

I handed the four-jaw gun to the Champion, while taking the grip of the needle rifle in the other hand. I then steadied it in both of my arms, getting the feel of this very different rifle.

It was slightly heavier than the carbine, but easy enough to handle. I took a look through the scope - unlike the carbine, an external scope is fitted to every standard-pattern Type-31 rifle, so it can be used with just the naked eye.

Which was an advantage for it, I suppose - it saved us from relying on helmets and eyepieces. Equipment failures happen, and our targeting headgear was not immune. It also didn't help that they had those damn lights on our eye-scopes...

The scope display is a standard oval - but it does the job with a decent zoom. The needle rifle was also simpler to reload, through a basic breech-loading mechanism. The Type-51 had a larger magazine with more rounds to play with, but it ejected upward from the top of rifle; so if you weren't careful, you could end up getting brained by it. In the heat of battle this was an easy mistake to make - and our skulls are not as thick as those of Sangheili.

Two of our Minors, under Xen's orders, had moved some sacks of moss and animal matter into another target rack. Once they were clear, the Champion gave me permission to fire.

I let loose a number of the deadly long blamite shards, watching with satisfaction as two of them super-combined into one of the large sacks, shearing it in an explosion of tinkling crystal.

I'm no scientist, so don't ask me how blamite works. All I know is that you _don't_ want to get hit by it - one shard is bad enough, as it will explode and leave a mess, not to mention trace-fragments that cause blood-poisoning. But having those things super-combine...well, what _that_ can do to an organic being makes for a horrific sight.

One that I would have to get used too.

It only takes two rifle shards to cause such an explosion, as I found when I tried the Type-31 out for the first time that day. The standard Needler requires more shards - at least seven - to produce the same effect. The chain-reaction was enough to cause damage to any number of targets nearby - as was shown by nearby sacks flying in different directions from the explosion, torn to pieces or even partly vaporised. The rifle lacked the Type-33's tracking abilities, however.

I also noticed that while the Type-31 propelled the shards at lethal speed, it was nothing like the supersonic velocity and impact of the Type-51's ammunition. So the stopping-power wasn't as great; one of those shards would kill somebody instantly if you got them in the head at a suitable range, don't get me wrong, but the Sangheili Carbine personally struck me as producing a more certain kill.

From what I'd heard, it could knock a hostile on their backs at close-range. Now that I'd fired the carbine for myself, I was ready to believe those tales. Having a good man-stopper at my command would come in handy in tight spots - and for a soldier in the field, it wouldn't hurt to have more rounds in my magazines.

After thinking it through, I made my choice.

"I respectfully request that I take up the Type-51, noble Champion."

"Your request is granted, initiate."

I returned the needle rifle to the rack - within seconds of doing so Xen handed me back the carbine. As I cradled the weapon with eternal thanks, the Champion fixed me with his immolated face. His burned flesh still seemed crisp from his near-death on Doisac, even after all these years.

In spite of this, I could see the soft smile on his face. A smile of pride.

"I will see to it that the legion that we are assigned accepts your use of that weapon. Worry not - I have good standing among the Sangheili."

That was something not many Kig-Yar could claim. He clapped me on the shoulder, and then summoned more recruits to take up their weapons.

* * *

The rest of that morning and early afternoon was spent on weapons training. Everyone got a weapon, everyone was declared kut-van and irs-van that day.

Par, predictably enough, became a kut-van - and the Champion saw to it that he was equipped with a Type-33 needler. Such a weapon would be an undisputed asset at close-quarters - of course, he'd have to make sure he was a good distance from any crystal explosions.

Kreth and Vek (the latter was a surprising choice for me) also became irs-van. However, the Champion deemed issuing one Sangheili carbine was pushing the limits as it was - so they both received needle-rifles. Vek was fine with that - but I can still recall Kreth's pained and envious look of rejection in my direction as I held the Type-51. Perhaps the Oracle had promised him the four-jaw weapon, too.

We three were the only ones in our lance of eight to become irs-van. Together with irs-van from other lances, we were at the long firing range set up in the courtyard for most of the rest of the day - the others who had become kut-van were receiving hand-to-hand combat training in the Coliseum down in Vara.

We would be doing the same too, soon enough - but Xen had decided that it was best that we irs-van devote ourselves to sharpening our marksmanship as much as possible.

Using the same energy fields that we'd previously used for our marksmanship tests, we were told to constantly keep improving our score - and new challenges would be added. For example, the holographic energy fields - at the command of the nearby Huragok - would levitate and shift around the area, and we had to hit them as moving targets.

We did it again and again. As I've said, training is nothing but repetition. The sound of my Type-51 rang out across the training ground that whole day. Champion Xen supervised our irs-van training - the Majors were all down in the town arena, no doubt enjoying the show of our lance-mates beating and slashing each other to a pulp.

It was only in the very late afternoon, just as evening was beginning - that the kut-van returned to the courtyard in a brisk formation jog. Sure enough, they were covered in cuts and bruises. It was a wonder they were able to still walk, much less run.

I counted myself lucky. Vek stood there, his mouth open in horror. Even Kreth looked just a little shocked.

Major Krel was chuckling to his heart's content as the others lined up. I saw Nix giving a neutral glance in his direction, but was all.

Xen turned to the irs-van before him.

"There is a final session today - but it will not be physical. Join your lance-mates in the briefing theatre."

That was a surprise. I knew the briefing theatre existed - it was an underground space, accessible from the Southern gateway. But we had never used it before - nearly every day's briefing had been done outside, in the training ground. This had to be something special.

We deposited our weapons back into the racks, where the Huragok checked them over. Ribib the Deacon had emerged too, no doubt eager to make sure his consecrated weapons had not been tampered with. We then joined the kut-van as they dispersed to the briefing theatre.

"Major Fark will be presiding over this," the Champion continued as he lead us from the firing range to the growing group of recruits filing towards the Southern gate. "Pay close attention to his words and knowledge - they will be as vital to the survival as any skill you learn in the field."

We obeyed, and sure enough I found myself heading through the side entrance in the Southern gatehouse, down a flight of torch-lit stairs - and into the briefing theatre.

It was a large, hemispherical room, with many rows of seating. In a pit in front of these rows stood a podium, and behind it holographic screens used for presentations. By the time I found my seat, just near Shik and Par (who were covered in bruises from the arena) Majors Nix and Krel were already seated just behind the speaker's position on the podium.

In front of each of our seats was a single, polished data-slate. Right now they were inert - but I knew they had to serve a purpose.

Major Fark only entered after everyone had sat down, a hushed silence passing in the wake of his arrival. He moved quietly and elegantly - it took us a moment to realise that he'd actually arrived.

Fark was very different from Nix and Krel, and for that matter the other Majors who presided over the other half of the barracks. He was someone you didn't want to mess with, like the other two - but unlike them, I never saw him scream at people. The only occasion when he did raise his voice were when the recruits he commanded were at a distance, or whenever there was background noise. He seldom indulged in sadism or humiliation of recruits the way Krel did.

No, his demeanour was much cooler, icier - when he got angry with someone, he was always dangerously quiet, stating the recruit's failure point-by-point, with painful logic and precision. Very similar to how Nix had coolly lectured us all on the human Imp warriors - but Fark did that sort of thing far more often. Like I said, he never had to scream to get his points across. He commanded the 6th Lance with cold precision, while permitting no discrepancy or disorder.

His background in the military was also very different. The other Majors had served in the regular legions - but Fark had apparently been part of some specialist intelligence-gathering or relic-hunting outfit. Reportedly, that unit had been attached to the Ministry of Fervent Intercession, one of the most powerful and secretive organisations in the military.

There were other rumours that flew around - that he had been a feared interrogator with the Ministry of Preservation, that he had helped command scouting operations that uncovered key reliquary sites, or that his unit been charged with recovering human databanks in the earlier years of the war, carrying out dangerous long-range forays into their space.

Whatever the truth, he had certainly been involved in some very sensitive operations - and thus was no ordinary soldier. He certainly had the air of an intelligence officer - I often noticed Nix looking somewhat uncomfortable around him, though there was undisputed respect there.

We recruits all knew Fark's background too - in some ways that made him more intimidating than Krel could ever be. When Fark took the podium and spoke, we all listened - and I already had the feeling what his purpose here was.

"Today you shall start to know your enemy," he began, keeping his voice cool and calculated as ever, though getting straight to the point. "The greatest enemy our Covenant today faces. The humans."

I straightened my back, fixing my eyes on the podium. I felt that same sinking feeling of dread, swelling in the pit of my stomach; the same that had struck me when Nix had told us about humanity's elite Imp-Helljumpers.

Fark knew he had our full attention.

"Whatever you might have already heard about the humans: in broadcasts from our _esteemed_ matriarchs," he emphasised that word with a small smirk and just a slight hint of sarcasm, "or from the Sangheili, or even from the Prophets - forget it all now. Here, you shall hear about our enemy from those who have actually fought them. From those who have no interest in sending you to war with illusions."

He called up the holographic display behind him. I felt my blood freeze.

A three-dimensional image of...a creature which had to be a human...flashed into being, floating above the podium in a shining, flawless projection. The information on the screen behind indicated the image was life-size, perfect to scale of their average size. Humans are only somewhat shorter than us, though I knew a Sangheili would easily dwarf them.

Still, the mere image of one of these hostile aliens caused every recruit in the briefing theatre to recoil in horror and shock. This was the first time I had seen an image of one, as it was for many of my comrades. Before, I had known of them only in stories, descriptions, words.

Such a flat face, as if it had been super-compressed or cut back by some great force. Features that looked like they had been painted and chiselled onto their faces. Such bizarre, exposed ears. Eyes sunken into that crushed visage. Slender, flexible limbs, with small, dainty five-fingered hands and five-toed feet. They had hair, but their skin seemed so smooth, unblemished and perfect. Humans looked as though a fine artist had sculpted them - they looked so unnaturally slender and elegant.

They were not imposing beings, they did not look dangerous or menacing or threatening - but they possessed a bizarre, alien beauty that I found...unsettling.

The image we were shown was of a male human - naked for demonstration. In a spilt-second it was joined by the image of a female; they seemed to be even more elegant than the males, almost like figurines of precious china. There certainly was an air of fragility about these aliens, along with an alluring, attractive appearance that just didn't seem right or natural to our eyes.

I'd heard so many stories from the front that described humans as physically frail and easily killed. Judging from what I was seeing now, that at least had to be true. Their skeletons weren't as frail as that of a Ruuhtian, but a Sangheili could easily break them with one blow.

A T'Vaoan shouldn't have too much trouble with them either - the statistics that popped up, based on data gathered from dissections of recovered human corpses, showed their maximum running speed to be less than ours, with slower reflexes - even if their physical strength was closely tied with ours.

And yet, we were being told that they were dangerous enemies of the Covenant. How?

Fark could sense our confusion.

"Do not be fooled by appearances," Fark told us all, gesturing at the holographic humans that shone above him like sinister ghosts. "They are fragile creatures, that much is true. Their speed and strength is exceeded by most of the peoples of our Covenant. Their soldiers and ships lack protective energy shields, and this has cost them dear. They are at a major technological disadvantage. They have not been able to stop our advance, or prevent the cleansing of their worlds. In short, they are outmatched. _But_..."

He emphasised that last word, before pausing. He scanned his silent audience, meeting the eyes each and every one of us, before finally resumed.

"Always remember that we have been fighting them for eight years now - and we have so far failed to crush them utterly. They are still fighting us at every step we take into their space - with even _greater_ ferocity, not less. We have killed so many of them - and yet more still stand to oppose us.

"They occupy many more worlds than we previously - and _foolishly_ \- assumed, and we continue to find more of their colonies with each passing cycle. The Hierarchs and the Ministry of Resolution have since concluded that we are still only advancing through the outer fringes of their space.

"We still do not know their full numbers, or the location of their homeworld - but the total human population is estimated to be in the tens of billions. The Human Empire is thought to include many hundreds of inhabited worlds. What we do know is that they almost always seem to have replacement troops available. "

If that was true, then humanity far exceeded the Kig-Yar in terms of total population. It was bad enough that we were already outnumbered by the Unggoy; these aliens obviously breaded just as much. Still, the Covenant Empire as a whole had a population of hundreds of billions - we still had the advantage in numbers. What advantage did the humans have?

"They are not showing any signs of giving in," Fark continued. "Furthermore, their resistance is costing our Covenant dear. We have been forced into a long war which we did not plan for. That is why we need more men like you on the front. Make no mistake - they are determined fighters. Their soldiers are highly trained and disciplined, with high combat experience - not just from fighting us, but also from fighting each other, long before we encountered them. We know this from the human databanks we've been able to recover - from the files they did not purge before capture."

I knew about that from my father - he told me that was the main reason why we had not already found their homeworld, why our progress against them was so slow. The humans were very thorough when it came to hiding information from us. Recon probes and vessels that entered their space were also frequently intercepted and shot down.

"Above all, they are a cunning and resourceful opponent - we have seen human battle tactics and military strategies to be meticulous, advanced and highly unpredictable. False retreats, deception, disinformation, traps, ambushes, defence-in-depth, sneak attacks, guerilla tactics - they have outwitted even the Sangheili on many an occasion. They may well be primitive in the eyes of our Covenant - but they are the most advanced civilisation our union has encountered since the War of Beginnings."

At that moment, each of our dataslates activated, lighting up before our eyes. The title flashed on the screen said it all.

 **Compiled Intelligence: Human.**

At Fark's instruction, we opened the files with a touch of a talon - the title screen gave way to a menu, showing files for their weapons, vehicles, aircraft, ships, equipment, biology, military organisation, battlefield tactics and doctrine, artificial intelligences, political structure and so on. I also saw a file with a list of their elite warriors - the dreaded imps and demons.

It was no doubt very good intelligence - we had been fighting them for many cycles by this time, and knew more than we did when we first encountered their species. We had certainly no idea what we had been dealing with back then - I wondered if, even now, there was still more to the humans that we hadn't seen yet.

We were privileged in receiving this much intelligence on them - most Covenant citizens were told very little about the enemy beyond the fact that they were heretics to be burned away. Had we been Unggoy or even Ruuhtian soldiers, we would probably have just been shown what they looked like along with basic descriptions of their weapons, before being sent off to the front.

As T'Vaoan warriors, we were higher-ranked. Thus we were entitled to know more.

"We shall start with their weapons," Fark resumed, banishing the holograms of the male and female humans, before calling up a projection which showed the blueprints of their most prominent weaponry. Assault rifles, shotguns, pistols and sniper rifles hovered above his head. When we accessed the weapons file on our dataslates, there was an equally detailed list.

"The Sangheili would have you believe that human weapons are nothing more than toys. They are _not_. Their guns are primitive, but high-powered. The projectiles they fire are solid metal, shot out at supersonic speeds - at far greater velocity than any known plasma weapon. They have a variety of ammunition, from basic rounds to incendiary bullets, to high-velocity armour piercing sniper rounds that can go clean through a Sangheili commander's helm."

Some among us exchanged sceptical looks, which Fark noticed.

"If you do not believe me," he said with a smug smirk, "take a look at this."

Another holographic screen suddenly appeared in the midst of the shining human weapons was - it began to play its footage with a hiss of static, before the chosen scene appeared.

What was being played to us was obviously footage from a T'Vaoan helmet camera. The scene was that of a bombed-out human city - the area was strewn with rubble, and nearly all the buildings still standing were nothing but shambled ruins. In the midst of this, a Murmillo lance - to which this soldier obviously belonged - lay crouched in a defensive positions. The hall echoed to the sounds of war on the video - rattles of human weapons-fire, the far-off thunder of their artillery, together with our own. I could also make out a distinct haze in the atmosphere in that ruined city - no doubt an after-effect of excessive plasma fire.

The murmillones were protecting what looked to be a temporary landing zone or staging area - I could see the crates, comms gear and a couple of parked Phantoms. They weren't alone, either - the audio recorded communication with at least two files of Ruuhtian snipers and sharpshooters stationed among the ruined buildings. Unggoy clustered about, some manning Shade turrets, others waddling here and there with assigned tasks - and others of course, sat on their arses snoozing.

I tensed up as I saw the tall, hulking armoured forms of Sangheili officers - marching about in their fine-crafted, clicking armour, checking on their assigned troops with their keen predatory eyes, bellowing and coercing any Unggoy that looked to be slacking off into obedience. It would not be long before I would have to deal with them in the flesh.

The owner of the helmet-cam had his attention drawn to a third Phantom, which had descended after cautiously circling the area under Banshee escort, and was now touching down in the midst of the staging area. I could hear the wails of the Type 26 GSAs as they patrolled the area, scanning for any potential threat. The arriving dropship obviously carried an important passenger.

Sure enough, the Phantom's troop bay doors opened - and out stepped a Sangheili Field Master, clad in shining gold armour. I knew that their armour designs varied between their clans and the Fleets, Legions and Ministries they served - but the high-ranking four-jaw Field Masters always wore golden armour of some description. If not, their place would be filled by the silver-clad Ultras.

This one carried a swagger that was to be expected of his high rank - and species. Sangheili commanders loved to advertise their presence on the field - as if they had something to prove by showing off in all that gold plating, by being seen as much as possible by friend and foe. Our Champions did the same, but this was under the four-jaw insistence.

It was a good way to get seen by the wrong eyes, if you ask me.

This Field Master was accompanied by an escort of their Spec Ops warriors - black-armoured Sangheili with enclosed helmets. My father knew their kind well - as a commando he had not only fought alongside them, he'd been _trained_ by them. They were the deadliest warriors of our Covenant - together with the loyal Ultra at his side, surely this Field Master should be safe?

It did seem that way - until the Phantom took off, leaving the Field Master, the Ultra and their escort in the open landing area. They looked dangerously exposed - yet the Field Master insisted on conducting his inspection of this staging area, confident in his safety and survival.

He paid the price.

There was a ten-minute interlude after the Phantom departed, as the Field Master set about questioning the local commanding officers, including the local T'Vaoan commander - before the shot rang out.

A single, sharp crack of a far-off rifle, from somewhere among the ruined towers in the near-distance. Within that split-second, the Field Master's head was engulfed in an explosion of purple blood, bone and golden armour shards. The victim of a perfect shot - with what was obviously a specialised high-velocity, armour-piercing bullet - the Sangheili commander dropped to his knees with half his head blown away, before toppling forward to the ground, lifeless.

The Ultra, now left in command, howled out for all troops to take cover, before more shots rang out. There had to be more than one human sniper out there.

Two of the Spec Ops Sangheili also fell to the lethal AP rounds, along with one of the local red-armoured field officers, their heavy bodies topping to the ground. Their size was no advantage when it came to taking cover, especially not in an urban environment.

The human snipers, by contrast, could stay virtually invisible. Small yet lethal hunters, their effect was clearly devastating in a bombed-out city. They could be in any of the buildings that the murmillo was glancing at, in any of the windows, in any cranny anywhere.

The last shot we heard found the owner of the helmet cam. I felt sick as I saw Kig-Yar blood splatter across the screen, before the poor soul fell with his helmet clacking onto the concrete. I saw a beam rifle clatter out of his hands - he had been unlucky to be seen carrying it. The enemy sniper must have identified this murmillo as a long-range threat, and neutralised him accordingly.

The last we heard was the Sangheili Ultra demanding the Banshees seek out the snipers and destroy them from the air, and that the Ruuhtian snipers assist with counter-fire - before the recording ended and the screen dissolved away in the air.

Fark addressed us once more, our blood frozen.

"Human snipers are highly-trained and skilled, as you have just seen. They have proven just as formidable and more than any of our irs-van - do not doubt that for a moment. And they have more than just high-powered sniper rifles - we have seen human weapons of mass destruction which can level whole bases and scourge whole continents with radiation. They have war machines that have proven just as lethal as any of our own."

He called up another video clip, dating from early in the war - this one was even more chilling. Another military staging area on a human world, the video feed playing from one of the bases surveillance cameras. Alarms were blaring out, while the speakers broadcast a warning that the human infiltrators had disabled their overhead energy shield - and that a human ship had slipped in close and launched a missile at the base.

Within seconds, the whole area was engulfed in a blinding nuclear flash. We saw this flash, the mushroom cloud and then the blast front - Kig-Yar, Unggoy, Huragok and Sangheili were all reduced to ash. Then the image dissolved into static.

"Thankfully, the incident you just saw is very rare. Our naval cover that day was light and outnumbered - the humans were able to overwhelm it. After the blast, naval reinforcements arrived and all local human warships were eliminated. We have taken steps to prevent such incidents. On all other occasions their navy is no match for ours - human nuclear weapons are typically intercepted.

"But heed my words, initiates. Many have underestimated the humans - Sangheili, Jiralhanae, Kig-Yar and Unggoy alike. But I have not known many to underestimate the humans and live. Never - _ever_ \- fail to respect their desire to fight to their last, while killing as many of you as they can.

"They are losing this war - we will find their homeworld. But if some day they find it within their power and ability, they would wipe us all out - just as we are wiping them out now. They destroy and steal all Forerunner reliquaries we attempt to acquire - they started this war when they did so at the first of their colonies we discovered. They attacked the emissaries of the Ministry of Tranquility without provocation. There was never any hope of offering them a place in our Covenant.

"They will not negotiate. They will not bargain. They will not surrender. They are determined to undermine and destroy our Covenant however they can. To end this war and restore peace, one side must be eradicated _utterly_. That side must be the humans - not us. Never forget that."

At that chilling note, the session neared its end. We were instructed to revise the intelligence on our dataslates as much as possible in our free time and in future sessions - we were expected to recognise all human weaponry and military equipment from the manual as second-nature, just as much as we studied the digital manual our own weaponry. The latter was on a separate dataslate which, we were told, was waiting for each of us in our dormitories.

I had a brief scan through the human infantry weapons list again. One gun, displayed in the detailed blueprints, caught my attention in particular - an elegant, scoped weapon which its creators referred to as the 'Designated Marksman Rifle'.

I felt a cold anger seize me. I remembered that weapon well. I had heard its name from the warrior who had returned my dead father's helmet. It had been that weapon which had killed him, with a single shot to the head. A shot fired by a human sharpshooter.

The humans - those strange, elegant, fragile yet dangerous creatures - were truly a threat to all the peoples of the Covenant. My duty was to fight them.

My thoughts were interrupted as I saw Champion Xen take the stand, allowing Fark to step aside. I gave him my undivided attention.

"What you have heard today is a milestone, recruits. You known begin to know what it is we fight, and why we fight. You also know what all of our brothers at the frontlines are facing, and risking their lives every day to defeat. While they do so, we still struggle to complete our training, to get you ready as we can make you to face the humans."

I heard a number of unsettled murmurs. Nix perked up in his podium seat, clearly ready for the worst I did not like the tone Xen was taking.

"Henceforth, it is only natural that the Sangheili would want us to the frontlines as quickly as possible. The Vara Training Grounds, along with all others, have received a new general order from their Council of Masters - our training times are to be cut.

"You will not be staying here another three months, as originally planned. The Sangheili Legions expect this season of recruits to join them within another three weeks. Their High Council has just passed a motion cutting our training times to the lowest that our representatives at the Ministry of Concert were able to accept. They want more of us to reach the front as soon as possible."

We all gasped. This was unprecedented - worse, it was criminal! Now the four-jaws were cutting training that was vital to our survival? Several of the older recruits blustered in protest, and even Nix and Krel looked like they wanted to scream in defiance.

It was only Xen's words and gaze, along with a gesture of a talon, that calmed us all - and kept us listening.

"You will still receive the training that is necessary - but it will be within a much shorter time. You will still be expected to revise the information you have been given this day. That is all I can say for now. These coming three weeks _will_ be hard on all of you - what follows harder still. Know that the pressure is now on you - _all of you_ \- to deliver as we are expected. Do not disappoint. There are many who depend on us. The Sangheili most of all. Let us show them all what the warriors of Vara can do."

We all acknowledged the Champion's words - but I can still remember Nix's look of fury to this day, as he lay seething in his seat just near the podium, his talons digging into the arm rests. He knew the unnecessary danger that the Sangheili were putting us all in. It was almost as if they wanted untrained Kig-Yar to be sent to a bloody massacre.

Still, none of us would dare direct or anger at Champion Xen - we all held him in the highest respect as our leader. We all looked up to him - and in this situation, he was merely the messenger.

" _The Four-Jaws..._ " Par hissed to me as we all moved to leave the theatre, keeping his voice out of everyone else's earshot. " _The fucking Four-Jaws...Bastards...all of them...Fuck them all!_ "

I couldn't agree more - but there was nothing I could do. This situation was out of our control. I knew it, everyone else knew it. I could feel the group morale sinking, like a crushing dead weight. Nothing else crushes your spirit more than something like that - especially when it is felt by _everyone_.

We were indeed under new pressure - especially now that we knew just what we were fighting against. These coming three weeks would have to count.

Three weeks - and then we would face the fire.


End file.
